


Quintessence: Change is Inevitable

by Tempest_Wind



Series: The Story of Mara, She-Ra of Etheria [2]
Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Anxiety Disorder, Colonization, Comedy, Drama, F/F, F/M, Grayskull Squadron OCs, Heroism, Humor, M/M, Mental Illness, Multi, Overcoming Odds, Prequel, Psychological Themes, Tragedy, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-31
Updated: 2020-10-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:32:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 20
Words: 19,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26217190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tempest_Wind/pseuds/Tempest_Wind
Summary: Mara’s hopes, her dreams, her promise led her on the path to becoming Etheria’s First Champion. Her courage paved the way for Adora and her friends to change the world. Her sacrifice made their victory tangible. This is her story.Part 2 of this series focuses on exploring the weight of the mantle of She-Ra and how deep the secrets of her mission go as she continues her progress in balancing Etheria.This is a prequel story revolving around Mara, the Grayskull Squadron, the origins of the First Ones. This will contain spoilers for the first four seasons of She-Ra. Chapters include links to research done on the original He-Man and She-Ra series.
Relationships: Light Hope/Mara (She-Ra)
Series: The Story of Mara, She-Ra of Etheria [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894093
Comments: 49
Kudos: 37





	1. Diversion

**Author's Note:**

> This is Part 2 of a series. If you have not read Part 1, please find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25843468/chapters/62786857)

Mara made her way silently to the cockpit as the ship flew towards Salineas, her sword in one shaking hand while the other clutched a towel around her neck. She was shivering as she slumped in her captain’s seat.

“Light Hope?” Mara kept her voice quiet, desperately trying to avoid waking any of her crew. “Light Hope, are you there?”

The elegant woman flickered into existence before her. “How can I help you, Mara?” she asked.

“Light Hope, I’m scared,” she said, her voice small like a child’s.

The hologram’s expression shifted to concern. She hovered closer to Mara.

Reaching out a transparent hand, Light Hope rested it over the other woman’s.

“It is going to be okay,” she said in a stilted, emotionless manner that Mara felt genuine relief from.

“I know you said this is my destiny,” Mara said, fighting against tears. “I know you said I’m supposed to do these amazing things. But something is happening to me and I don’t know what. What if I can’t do this?” Her hand moved to the side of her neck and she fought to stop scratching the skin there.

The expression of concern on Light Hope’s face flickered to confusion. “But you are the Champion of Etheria,” she said. 

“What if that’s supposed to be someone else’s destiny and I took it from them?” Mara asked. “What if I’m just holding everything back?”

“You were chosen,” Light Hope insisted. 

“I know, just--”

“You are growing frustrated,” the hologram said. “What is the root of your query?”

Taking in a shaking breath, Mara’s bottom lip trembled as she tried to fight through the pain. “I don’t know…” she admitted. “What does… What does transforming into She-Ra do to the host, long-term?”

Light Hope was silent for several long seconds. “Query not recognized. Can you rephrase it?”

Mara grunted and flopped her head back against the chair, her wet hair sticking to her face.

“What are the long-term side-effects of carrying the mantle of the Champion, She-Ra?” Mara said more straightforwardly, punctuating each word.

Light Hope fell silent again. “Research unconfirmed,” she said. “You are the first Champion.”

Mara sat up at that. “Of Etheria, maybe,” she said, her voice straining. “But you told me there have been other Champions. Light Hope, who else has carried the mantle of She-Ra?”

“You are the first Champion of your kind,” Light Hope repeated. “You are not the first to carry the mantle of She-Ra.”

“That makes no sense,” Mara insisted. “Either I’m the first or I’m not. What about those stories, those legends of previous Champions that I was told during training?”

Light Hope hummed quietly to herself as she processed this information. “I’m sorry, Mara,” she admitted. “It seems my data is incomplete. There may be an unforeseen bug in my system.”

Mara sunk where she sat as worry and fear grabbed hold from inside her. But as she looked up into Light Hope’s eyes, she witnessed the pain of a person who could not do enough to help. Mara wanted to comfort the AI.

“None of us are perfect,” Mara said, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips.

Light Hope pulled back as though stunned by the admission. The hologram’s gaze moved along the interior of the cockpit as she searched for meaning.

“Would you be happier with me if I did not have errors?” Light Hope asked.

“Not at all,” Mara admitted, a chuckle tinkling along the edges of her voice. “Can you imagine if either of us was perfect? We’d be insufferable.”

Light Hope’s brows and lips pinched as an unfamiliar reactiveness moved through her. “But surely my goal as part of Etheria’s system is to achieve perfection,” she insisted. 

“Do us a favor and don’t,” Mara said, the laughter coming through clearly. 

“Embracing my errors runs counter to my programming,” Light Hope insisted. “You are laughing at me.”

“I’m…” Mara caught herself. “I’m laughing a little at myself, too. That’s who you remind me of right now, Hope: myself.”

Light Hope relaxed where she stood. “I suppose we have a few traits in common,” she conceded.

“And I keep thinking to myself ‘Is this what I sound like?’ Honestly, how have I not driven you and Serenia completely crazy by now?” Mara admitted.

The hologram’s expression softened as a small sound like “heh” escaped from her parted lips.

Mara fell silent as she stared at her. “Did you just… did you just _laugh_ at me?”

“Ap…” Light Hope began but stuttered against a chuckle. “Pfff... ap-poloies.”

Mara broke down into laughter and Light Hope made a vain attempt at covering her mouth before joining in. Tears slid down the sides of Mara’s face, some of them goaded by mirth and others by relief.

She was no closer to getting answers, but at least she learned something important: Light Hope’s laugh was beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some much-needed levity, and it was such a delight to write these two cracking each other up.


	2. Daunting

Before her team rose, Mara transformed briefly into She-Ra. The wounds at the sides of her neck dissipated, the skin closed up with all signs of stress erased. Instinctively, her hands moved to touch and feel for the gills. They weren’t there, even in this form, but as she rubbed at the skin, she swore she could feel those jagged lines and foreign tissues beneath the surface. She transformed back to her normal self and fought back the urge to pick and stare, attempting to will away the paranoia that crept beneath the surface of her skin.

The ship was planted on firm grass behind a dune, above rippling water that ebbed and flowed over the village underneath. As the Grayskull Squadron exited their cloaked ship, they witnessed the villagers below moving in and out of the water with complete ease. They bobbed with each movement, switching between walking and swimming while breathing air or water.

Mara’s hand reflexively moved to the side of her neck and Serenia’s gaze trailed after her.

“We need to go to the capital,” Mara informed everyone.

“Hey, uhhh, how much sand are we talking here?” Lev asked. His hover scooter made an angry whirring noise as it tried to move off the grass.

“Oh…” dread and regret moved through Mara. “Lev, I can’t believe I didn’t think of that.”

“I’ll pull up a map,” Serenia announced.

“Already on it,” Shay said, holding out their comm. A digitized map came up on their device and with a wry, twisted smirk they remarked, “Didn’t exactly plan for accessibility here, did they?”

Walkways were made of dunes or scalloped shells, while stairs existed as disconnected, floating pillars.

“And these little red, flashing indicators mean most of the pathways are water-logged,” Shay pointed out.

Lev tilted his head back against his chair, staring at the sky in resignation. Shay wore an expression like they were formulating the most sardonic joke they could think of. Nessa was deep in thought, while Mara, Serenia, and Gideon all traded pale expressions with one another.

Nessa approached the engine of his chair. “If I just change the output…” she began.

“No! No, absolutely not,” Lev said. “Listen, you’re a great engineer, but we’re not experimenting with my chair. We’re going to do this the old-fashioned way and we’re going to hate it.”

Lev pointed a finger at Mara. “You turn into She-Ra and carry my chair,” he declared. Then he pointed at Shay. “You’re carrying me.”

Shay snorted. “Sure, but you weigh more than me,” they replied. “We’re not going to get very far.”

“If you’re not uncomfortable with the idea, I think I can carry you,” Gideon offered.

“Fine, cool, we have a solution,” Lev’s tone was sharp. “And then after this? No more sand. Ever.”

“No more sand,” the group repeated.

They trudged over sand dunes and through green saltwater marshes as they charted a path towards the kingdom. Lev rode on Gideon’s back as the much taller man supported his weight with ease. Shay could not help a few jokes about Lev “running off with Gideon” after this.

“Nah, I get it, you’ve upgraded from enbies with noodle-arms to buff-looking stuffed-animal-nerds,” Shay pointed out.

“Oh, for crying out loud…” Lev muttered, holding his forehead with his free hand.

“What do you think, Gid? Computer geeks your type?” Shay went on.

“Lev is very handsome and also very much in love with you,” Gideon replied with a soft chuckle. “I’m flattered, though.”

“Why am I in love with them? Why?” Lev shook their head. 

“You enjoy being annoyed incessantly,” Shay said. 

“I _do though_. What’s wrong with me?” Lev said.

“Hey, uh, guys?” She Ra began as they reached an overlook for the uneven rock formation. 

Where the castle should have stood below them, the entire area was submerged. Water leapt towards the craggy cliffside, disturbing the only visible structures in the area: boats.

"This… can't be right," Nessa said, checking the map on her datapad. "It says the kingdom's here, but…"

"Oooh-ooo, more than a little waterlogged," Shay remarked.

"I am not ready to deal with today," Lev muttered, his voice flat as he wilted against Gideon's shoulders.

"It's okay," She-Ra said, settling Lev's chair down on the most stable-looking patch of rock. "We'll figure this out.”

Her team looked to each other, their disheartened expressions giving away that they weren’t ready to believe her. She-Ra transformed back into Mara so she could address her team as their leader. Anxiety flooded her, but confidence in the people around her powered her forward.

“Listen: this team? We are the weirdest team that’s ever been sent to Etheria,” Mara insisted. Shay gave a snort as some of her party members stared at her in confusion. Serenia held her head and shook it. “Each of you is the most unique in your field, and that’s what brings us together. We see the world differently from everybody else, and that’s what makes us so special.

“Gid, your heart guides you through other cultures like they’re part of you,” she went on. “Lev, there is no problem too big or small for you to solve, and you make it easy enough for anyone to follow. Shay, you see the pathways nobody else thinks to take, and you exploit them. Nessa, you can make _any_ system function through sheer perseverance, regardless of its intended purpose. And Serenia, it doesn’t matter how complex the job is, you always find a way to succeed.”

She looked across the faces before her and the creeping nervousness was drowned with affection for her team.

“It’s my pleasure to get to lead you,” she insisted. “And we’re going to figure this out together, just like we’ve figured out everything else.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to my friend Callie who helped me write Lev's situation in a believable way while also helping me find solutions that, while frustrating for him, did not disempower him.


	3. Draining

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to life and an increase in work, I will likely be posting every-other-day rather than every day for the forseeable future.

As Mara finished her speech and the feeling of resolve welled within everyone, a pink-and-yellow head breached the water below with an unexpected, “Hello friends!” Mara shrieked and, her arms wheeling with a frantic energy, fell unceremoniously over the edge into the water.

“Ah, Mara, come to join me for a swim?” Prince Aquanis said as she broke the surface to spit out a mouthful of salt water.

Serenia braced herself on the edge of the rock formation, reaching down for Mara who was several feet too far.

“I’m okay, I’m okay!” Mara shouted up to them as relieved sighs and laughter filled the air. Cheeks pink with embarrassment, Mara tread the water as she turned to the prince. “I wasn’t expecting this kind of a welcome. Where is your kingdom anyway? We got lost.”

Prince Aquanis pointed down and blinked.

"I-it's actually down there?" she demanded.

“I said we were having flooding problems,” the prince said with a shrug.

“Those are _very serious_ flooding problems,” Serenia insisted.

“I know, that’s why I asked your team to help,” he said as if this were perfectly normal.

“Greatttttt…” Lev sighed against Gideon’s shoulder. “How are we supposed to help a flooded kingdom? Hold our breaths for a really long time?”

“Wow, you sound even more sarcastic than me right now,” Shay noted.

“I’m HAVING A BAD DAY,” Lev snapped.

“I’m sorry that I didn’t communicate this when we spoke last, but the tide rolls out at nightfall,” Prince Aquanis said. “But with each passing moon, the water gets choppier and the waves crash with intensity. All the structures my engineers have tried to build have been destroyed before Dayrise.”

“I don’t want to sound rude,” Nessa began, “but why even bother building a wall? Your people seem to have adapted to amphibious life just fine.”

The prince gave a polite nod. “Yes, we do well both in and out of the water,” he conceded. “And our structures are built from what belongs in the ocean. However, the force of these waves is unnatural and very destructive. It has caused permanent damage to my kingdom, and harm to my people.”

“How long has this been happening for?” Mara asked. 

“Three months,” Prince Aquanis said, his voice tense. “It’s hard to imagine this has been going on for so long. Many have fled to the safety of villages nearby where the water is rough, but not as intense.”

“That’s terrible…” Gideon murmured.

“You called it unnatural,” Serenia pointed out.

“I believe this is deliberate,” the prince explained. “It seems to be an attack directed towards my kingdom, but I can’t imagine how or why. No other kingdom has control of the sea, and none to the point where it can overwhelm myself and my people.”

“We gotta figure out who’s causing this and mess them up twice as bad,” Shay said.

“We need to work towards a structural solution,” Nessa insisted. “Then handle the social aspect afterwards.”

“No point in building something that’s going to get destroyed,” Shay retorted.

“No point in wasting time trying to reason with what’s likely a natural disaster,” Nessa responded.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, no point in fighting between us anyway,” Gideon intervened, moving between the two. “You both have good points. This will probably take a few approaches.”

“If you are amenable to it,” Prince Aquanis began, “I would like to bring She-Ra to the ruins so she may see the entry point of the floodwater. What’s left of the rock wall will tell a story better than I can with words.”

Mara’s hand subconsciously moved to the side of her neck, leaving her bobbing in the water at an awkward angle for a moment before she thought to correct herself. 

“R-right,” she breathed, transforming her sword and raising it above her head. “For the Honor of bbrrbrbbb,” she burbled as the shift in movement pushed half her head underwater. 

Nonetheless, the transformation took as she felt her body shift with Etheria’s magic. The water wrapped itself around her, surrounding her like a bubble as her skin grew more sleek, her hair more long, and her feet felt distinctly wider. Reaching desperately out, the bubble popped, leaving her floating in ocean, breathing both water and air simultaneously.

Her hands were on the sides of her neck in the next moment. There were those little slits, the tissues that shouldn’t be part of her. She felt the little flaps move as her head floated above the water. And as her nails dug into the back of her neck, She-Ra had to fight herself to let go.

She needed these gills right now to do her job. Swallowing back the creeping discomfort for these unnatural portions of her body, she turned to Prince Aquanis and nodded.

“Lead the way,” she told him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Due to life and an increase in work, I will likely be posting every-other-day rather than every day for the forseeable future.


	4. Devastation

The water wrapped like a cloak around them as Prince Aquanis and She-Ra dove below the surface. As Mara closed her eyes against the sting of salt water, she tried to fight the creeping discomfort by imaging herself somewhere familiar, somewhere safe.

_At the sound of the whistle, Mara’s head broke the surface of the water as she floated, panting in the pool. Scrubbing the chemically-treated water from her eyes, she coughed into her hand and shook the water from her ears._

_“Your time was two minutes slower than yesterday,” Dree Elle said, crouching down by the edge of the pool closest to her student._

_“Yeah… I had a lot on my mind,” Mara admitted._

_“Making your head heavy with worries about the future. What have I told you about that?” Dree Elle asked. “You gotta focus on what’s in front o--”_

_Mara’s lips gave a little twitch and she flipped over with a loud splash, backstroking away with a cry of: “Sorry, can’t hear you from over here, coach!”_

_“Hey! Get back here!” Dree Elle cried, laughter marking her words._

_“Gonna have to jump in and catch me!” Mara ducked under the water and rushed to the center of the pool._

_“Alright, alright,” Dree Elle sighed, taking off her shoes and socks before she dove in after her student. Mara was the least prepared to be pursued, and gave a shriek of laughter when she was caught by her trainer. “How’s this? Can’t escape now!” Dree Elle asked as she held Mara’s arm above the water._

_Mara tried to swim away, but Dree Elle’s grip was too solid. Even treading water, Mara’s head slipped beneath the surface, darkness clouding her vision for a brief moment. Her laughter was tinged with just a hint of fear as she realized that she couldn’t escape Dree Elle’s hold. For a brief moment, Mara wondered what would happen if this was someone else, someone she didn’t trust._

_“Sorry. Please let go,” Mara said and her tone came out serious enough that Dree Elle dropped her hold._

_“You okay? Was I holding you too hard? I’m sorry,” Dree Elle said as Mara rubbed her wrist._

_“No, it’s… it’s silly. I don’t know,” Mara admitted as she swam over to the ledge and reached for her towel._

_“It’s not silly,” Dree Elle insisted, following after. “It’s good that you spoke up. Always do that, Mara. Always remember to speak up.”_

Tense legs kicking in the water, she forced herself to take a breath through gills that should never have been part of her anatomy. Her entire body seized, arms scrambling until that oxygen made its way into her system.

Panting, she blinked open her eyes to see Prince Aquanis, his expression strained with concern as he held a hand out to her.

“I-I’m okay,” she tried to say, but water entered her mouth and she had to fight to spit it back out without regard for etiquette.

“I imagine it must take some getting used to,” he said, able to speak easily underwater, though his voice was grave with sympathy.

 _You have no idea,_ she thought to herself as she grasped his hand.

“We are nearly there,” he said as he led her past broken, shell-shaped buildings that stood like damaged pillars, and a submerged castle whose bits of moss and rocky exterior seemed more suited for water than air.

They landed on a series of shelf-coral docks, some of which floated detached from their bearings. Several dozen long chains of seaweed were attached to each base, but only a handful rose far above to the boats at the top. The prince’s fins transformed back into feet to lead the way along these paths to the outskirts of the kingdom towards a pile of debris. 

There was a wide, empty gap where the ships likely sailed through before the flooding, and then to each side, there was a seemingly endless line of uneven rocks around the perimeter of the kingdom.

She-Ra approached a rock pile and picked one up, bringing it close to her face to examine through murky water. It took her a moment to realize that she was holding part of a statue’s face. She puffed out her lungful of air as she stared down the long line of scattered, rocky debris.

Seeing the mix of shock and horror on She-Ra’s expression, Prince Aquanis nodded to her, pain creasing the lines on his face.

“Yes, This was part of the barrier that kept Salineas safe, until the water turned against us,” he said. “All these beautiful statues were the first casualties of the tides.”

He went on, “We have tried to rebuild them, but even rock is corroded by the force of these waves,” he said. “And it’s useless when there is no means to protect the entry point: we need to have access to allow ships in, and to keep tides and pirates out.”

She-Ra struggled as she realized that tech might be the only applicable solution to their problem. But that would be breaking the very same principles Gideon and the Primogen Council alike forbade: do not give advanced technology to the Etherians.

“I assumed if your people were clever enough to communicate from great distances apart, you might have a way to build us a door instead of a wall,” he said. “Come, let me show you how the flooding has impacted my castle,” he said, leading her back into the kingdom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Information about Salineas’ design came from She-Ra’s background designer Grace Kum’s portfolio here: http://www.grace-kum.com/dwtva.


	5. Drowning

The sandy foundation had been dredged by the shifting tides, leaving the castle standing on spindly stone pillars like a dancer balancing on their toe points. As She-Ra and Prince Aquanis swam to the building, she saw that wisps of moss clung to the rocky hull, unmolested. She looked to the other structures in the kingdom and saw the holes that damage had wrought on them. But the castle was intact, nearly untouched, save for its uneven foundation.

Reaching out a hand, she rested it on the knobby exterior, expecting it to be made of stone, but instead finding that it consisted of the smooth, hollow lines of a shell. Unable to voice her question, she turned to Prince Aquanis and pointed at it.

“Ancient sea snail shells are the strongest material on Etheria,” he said. “We reinforced the castle with them generations ago.”

Though that made sense, She-Ra could not shake the feeling that a detail was off. She caught herself staring at the bits of sea moss as she wondered why the rough tides wouldn’t drag them away, like the sand.

“This way,” Prince Aquanis said, leading her through the open archway into the palace itself.

The throne room bore the markings of its former beauty. The silks that once ribboned through the halls now hung limp and ripped. The mother of pearl floors lay scratched and scuffed, their luster lost to the cloudy water. 

At the center of the room sat a throne made of an enormous conch shell, its patterned exterior winding a path to the arched ceiling above. Sitting at the center was a perfectly round stone. Each time She-Ra tried to look away from the stone, her gaze was drawn back towards it.

Swimming up to it, She-Ra reached out a hand and tried resting it on the stone’s glossy exterior. From the pit of her stomach came a tightening, clenching sensation like the pain of illness. There came a faint rumble from outside.

“The tide has begun to pull back,” Prince Aquanis said. “Good.”

She-Ra tried pointing to the stone and when that gesture didn’t communicate what she needed, she tried flailing towards it.

“The Pearl? That is the runestone of my kingdom,” Prince Aquanis said. “It gives me, and by extension my people, power over the water.”

She wanted to ask what he meant by his people having this power, but she remembered how Prince Aquanis and his team all swayed together in an effort to guide the Moonstone through the water to its new home. This would require further investigation.

Examining the stone, She-Ra wondered why it didn’t glow like the Moonstone. Then another wave of nausea washed over her. She-Ra cupped her head and her stomach, floating in the water as she felt her body clench. She tried to take a breath, but found herself choking on water.

Prince Aquanis’ hands were on her arms in a moment, guiding her out of the castle. With his arms around her waist, he shifted his feet back to fins and propelled them upwards, reaching higher and higher until they broke the surface.

“Are you alright?” he asked as she spat out the water between gasping for that sweet, sweet air. She unconsciously slipped out of her She-Ra form, coughing wetly as Mara.

“I don’t know what that was,” she admitted. “I think my body was tired of being underwater.” As if on loop, her mind kept replaying the series of events leading to this: hand, stone, nausea. Her hand moved to the side of her neck, but of course there weren’t any gills on Mara. 

“Hey guys?” she shouted upwards, but saw only Lev and Shay there, resting on his hover scooter. “Where is everybody?”

“Serenia and the others went to gather supplies for the dam,” Lev said. “We made a lot of progress while you were away.”

“Yeah, hurry up,” Shay offered less than helpfully as they peered down the rock wall that led several feet down to the water below.

“Could one of you… toss down a rope or something?” Mara gasped out from the water. “I’m a little tired.”

“No worries, Mara,” Prince Aquanis said and, with the flick of his wrist, a wide cascade of water cupped her like two arms and carried her up the rock formation, depositing her gently atop. He followed suit shortly after, landing with a more practiced ease on his transformed feet.

Shivering, she hugged herself and sneezed. “T-thanks,” she said as she wrung out her hair.

Lev looked to Prince Aquanis with a raised brow and a silent question on his lips before looking to Mara. She nodded in response. There was no keeping the knowledge of technology away from the Salineans at this point in the process.

“Light Hope?” Lev said into the comms. “Pull up the map for the power grid like you did before and read aloud the description.”

He held out the comm device, which projected a hologram of a rudimentary map of Salineas and the surrounding area. Past the beaches, towards a wooded area, a red point blinked repeatedly until the hologram focused on it. At that spot, beneath the surface of the planet, was a roadway made of metal and tech, with Eternian symbols carved throughout it.

“It’s an active power grid, not far from here,” Lev said. “We just need to bridge the connection from the kingdom to the power grid and use it to power the dam.”

“Wait, what dam?” Mara asked. “We’re building a dam?”

“For the water, remember?” Shay offered. “Would you prefer we use a really big sponge?” Lev rolled his eyes at his partner and elbowed them in the ribs.

“We’re building a dam to fight the tides,” Lev said.

“I definitely got that,” Mara sighed. “The thing is, we need something that can also act as a port, to let the ships in.”

“Trade is highly important to my kingdom,” Prince Aquanis insisted.

“Way ahead of you,” Lev said. “The Sea Gate is going to be built like…. Well…”

“A gate,” Shay said.

“A gate,” Lev said with a nod. “By hooking up with the power grid, we can use hard-light energy to make the dam act more like a door.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Yep, sea snail shells are the toughest material on Earth.](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/news/2015/02/sea-snail-shell-the-worlds-strongest-material/)
> 
> The spindly foundation of the castle was inspired by google searching “aquarium castles” and looking at their bizarrchitecture.


	6. Decisive

“I thought hard-light energy is still in the testing phase,” Mara said, shaking her head as she considered Lev’s words. “I don’t want to discourage you, but we need a more permanent solution.”

“Correction: the tech is still in beta because it requires an extremely powerful energy source,” Lev said. “The Eternian tech built into Etheria relies on a fair amount of magic, which gives us an unknown, and potentially exponential energy source.”

“We could always take from more than one source,” Shay said. “Every kingdom has a runestone, right?”

“You’re being helpful…” Lev raised an eyebrow.

“Look, I’m looking for an excuse to get close-and-personal with a runestone,” Shay said. “I wanna hack it.”

“You… you _can’t_ hack a _runestone_ ,” Lev jabbed with his hands to articulate his point.

“Perhaps I could hack the runestone?” Prince Aquanis offered.

“Nobody can hack runestones!” Lev cried. “They aren’t tech, guys. They’re…. Mara, what are runestones?”

“They’re… well, actually I don’t know,” she admitted, looking to Prince Aquanis.

“They are the source of the connection the princesses forge with the magic of their kingdom,” Prince Aquanis said. “They conduct the magical energy.”

“So they’re conductors…” Shay said with a mischievous twinkle in their eyes. “I’mma hack it.”

“You drive me crazy,” Lev muttered.

“You love it,” Shay returned with a snort.

“So… let me make sure I have the plan right,” Mara said, trying to reel in her tech specialists. “We’re going to build a hard light gate that can act as a dam, and it’ll be powered by connecting to the nearby power grid… but it also might be powered by the runestone?”

“Once I hack the runestone it will be,” Shay said.

“Ugh… Yes, that’s pretty much the plan,” Lev said. “We’ll need to get a closer look at the runestone and figure out a way to measure its energy output to see if that’s even feasible.”

“Is there a chance of instability or degradation over time?” Prince Aquanis asked.

“In the tests we’ve done on Eternia, yes, that was the big problem,” Lev admitted. “We’re taking a risk here. But given the current hypotheses on Etheria’s magic potential, there’s a chance this could have incredible results and revolutionize hard light technology. If this works, the sheer progress made will change everything and the Council will have no reason to be mad that we gave this technology to locals.”

But Prince Aquanis stood with his shoulders slumped, concern deepening the lines on his face. Mara approached him, resting a hand on his shoulder.

“Prince Aquanis, if this plan fails, we’ll find an alternative solution for your kingdom,” Mara said, meeting his gaze. “I don’t want you to feel like we’re abandoning the plan if things go wrong. We’ll find a solution.”

“My kingdom is not as isolated as Bright Moon, Mara,” he replied. “We have always been fascinated with the elusive Eternians. I am excited about this opportunity, but I do grieve for my kingdom if misfortune continues to befall it in the name of ‘progress.’”

She winced at that, and Lev bit his lip.

“Look, Your Fishiness,” Shay began and both Mara and Lev stiffened at their teammate’s wildly informal wording. “There are countless ways we can mess up a gate for you. If you wanted a gate specialist you would have hired a gate-maker. Instead, you took a gamble on us. So let us take a gamble here too: if we’re going to mess this up, let’s mess this up in the most profound way possible, before we try the far less cool ways. And if you hate it, you just straight-up fire us and get some pros.”

Silence befell the group as Mara waited for the prince to lash out or demand Shay’s head. Prince Aquanis began shaking, and it was several seconds before laughter erupted from his lips. He rushed over to the hover scooter and gave Shay a friendly pat on the back that was both too rough and an unwelcome touch for the hacker. They grumbled and bared through it while Lev cackled. 

“Friends, I am so delighted by all of you,” Prince Aquanis declared, pulling both Shay and Lev into a hug that had Lev blushing and Shay staring daggers at Mara. She barely choked back her chuckle. “Please do your strange experiments with my blessing.”

“Great, cool, cool,” Shay said, slipping down out of the prince’s hold and scuttling their way off of Lev’s vehicle. “The tide’s going down fast. Maybe you want to bring us to the runestone and show us where we’re installing the Sea Gate?”

“Wonderful,” the prince declared. “Can you both swim?”

“Uhhh, no, actually,” Mara began, looking to Lev for guidance.

“My legs aren’t able to swim,” Lev said with certainty. “The best I can do is float, and not for long periods. Walking isn’t my strong suit either.”

“Oh!” the prince declared. “I see, and this is your mechanical steed for travel.” He reached out with a gentle hand and petted the handlebars where its head would be if it were a creature.

Lev chuckled softly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he admitted. “This is my steed that helps me go from place to place.”

“Wonderful!” Prince Aquanis said, reluctantly parting from the scooter. “Then you shall ride upon my back, and I shall swim for us both.”

Lev’s expression dropped. Shay grinned like a lunatic. Leaning back in his chair, Lev muttered to Mara between his teeth: “Don’t let the handsome fish man carry me off into the sunset. I’m not ready to be his wife.”

Shay erupted in laughter while Mara covered her face against an uncontrollable giggle fit. 

“Is something wrong?” Prince Aquanis asked.

“N-nothing,” Mara said, clearing her throat. “That’s probably our best plan, Prince Aquanis…”

“Ohhh noooooo,” Lev moaned quietly, his face scarlet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was at “Look, Your Fishiness” that I realized I had lost control of my character and Shay was running the story. They are a freaking troll, and I had to spend 2 hours talking with my engineer friends to figure out what the heck “hacking the runestone” could actually entail.


	7. Depths

After ensuring Lev was as comfortable as possible while resting against him, Prince Aquanis summoned a wave to carry them down to the kingdom below. The majority of the tide had exited in the short time it took to explain the plans, and the group made their way through chest-high water as they explored the broken kingdom.

Without the haze of water, the buildings seemed even more dilapidated, with sizable holes cutting into the structures, the outsides dyed by a grayish shade of algae. Without the support of the water, the buildings looked like they might collapse at any moment.

They reached the castle that stood perched on spindly legs where a deep crevice had opened below. Prince Aquanis stared at it in silence for a long moment, and Mara felt the echo of grief reverberate through to her. Hesitantly, she reached out and touched his arm to remind him that he wasn’t alone in this.

“We must move forward,” he said with a bright tone to his heavy voice. With the wave of his arm, the tide carried them up into the castle above. Inside, the interior fixtures hung soaked and dripping, their color darkened by dampness. Shay walked ahead in squelching sneakers as though they knew the way, their datapad humming softly in Light Hope’s voice.

“Do you even know what you’re looking for?” Mara asked.

Shay turned and pointed directly at the Pearl. “Shiny rock,” they commented as though it were obvious. “Hey Light Hope, give me a reading of whatever energy that shiny rock has.”

“The Pearl, the runestone of Salineas, stands at one meter in diameter and weighs nearly 90 kilograms,” Light Hope said through the comm device. 

“Nonono, skip the boring stuff,” Shay said.

Light Hope hesitated. “It acts as the point of connection between the Princesses and the magic of their kingdoms,” she offered.

“Boooooring,” Shay said. “Give me a read-off of the magic.”

“I cannot measure that,” Light Hope said.

Mara felt a faint buzzing in her head. She tried shaking off the feeling, but she was confronted instead with feeling strangely winded, like she had just run a mile.

“Ohhhh come on, pretty please?” Shay tried.

“We don’t have a way of measuring magical energy, Shay,” Lev insisted before shifting where he rested against the Prince’s back. “Sorry, hope I’m not too heavy.”

“Not at all! And please don’t worry,” Prince Aquanis said. “So you Eternians don’t know how to measure magic. What kind of measurement are you looking for? Perhaps I can help.”

Air wasn’t coming easily to Mara. She panted as she wondered if this was some form of panic or anxiety. But as she looked down, she noticed her gauntlet glowing before it transformed into a sword that rested in her hand. She blinked down at it, bewildered, as silence fell around them.

The strange buzzing became the sound of rushing water in her ears and she grunted as she struggled to breathe.

Without raising her sword or uttering any commands, the magical presence of She-Ra unfurled from the stone embedded in the hilt and wrapped itself around her. As she glowed, her body stretched, and the little slits appeared on the sides of her neck. Still winded, She-Ra grasped at her own gills and looked around.

“Do you hear that?” she panted before water rushed through the open archway of the castle, striking the team in the back.

“The tide? But it’s far too early!” the prince cried, transforming his feet to fins as he worked to keep Lev’s head above the water. Shay’s back slammed into a nearby wall from the force as they kept the datapad above their head at all costs. She-Ra rushed to Shay’s side, her neck submerged, and she finally took a proper deep breath.

“What’s happening?” she called to the prince as she swam to Shay’s side.

“The tide has never behaved this erratically,” Prince Aquanis said as Lev clung to him. “It should be hours before it begins to rise once more.”

“What could be causing this? Shay, are you ok?” She-Ra asked as she hesitated to reach towards her touch-repulsed teammate.

“Ooooof, no definitely not,” Shay admitted. “But this is the breakthrough I was looking for.”

The water rose steeply around them.

“What are you talking about?” She-Ra asked.

“We have to get out of here,” the prince said, fighting the tide as he swam forward.

“Shay, I want you to hang onto me as I swim us out of here,” She-Ra said.

Shay’s arms were already around her shoulders. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

Already the water reached a level above the door frame.

“Hold your breath, Lev,” Prince Aquanis commanded.

“Wait, wh--” Lev began, but thankfully sucked in a breath of air before he was plunged beneath the surface of the water. She-Ra followed suit, dividing deeper as Shay regretted their life choices. 

Prince Aquanis closed his arms together, creating a riptide that yanked him and She-Ra through the doorway, out of the castle. As they began paddling towards the surface, the tide rushed out beneath them, stranding them on the shaky foundation of the castle. 

The tides rose as a giant wave, high enough to block out the light of the moons above as it shrouded the landscape in darkness. She-Ra felt her body clench as her sword’s stone hummed and glowed.

Prince Aquanis, standing on transformed feet, raised his arms and focused his magic, trying to stop the oncoming crash. Shay and Lev screamed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably one of my biggest fears is drowning, so this whole chapter (heck, this whole arc) has my heart racing every time somebody is at risk of not breathing due to water.


	8. Damage

Prince Aquanis’ hands trembled as he focused on the tsunami before them, holding it in place. With both feet planted on the foundation of the castle, the energy reverberated off of him as he tried to control the wave. 

Shay clutched Lev close in an effort to support their partner, though they took small comfort in the weight of one another as they faced the massive tide. She-Ra stared at her sword, then the wave, then the sword.

“What do you expect me to do?” Mara’s panic escaped from her transformed lips as she demanded answers from her sword. “Am I supposed to cut the wave?”

The sword glowed and She-Ra hoped this would bring the answers she needed. The magical object glittered golden and shrank in her hands, finally resolving itself in the form of a pitcher.

“Is that supposed to be SARCASM?” she snapped, her voice cracking. She had to hold back the temptation to throw the stupid pitcher at the wave.

Prince Aquanis grunted, sweat beading on his forehead as he tilted his hands slowly downwards. The rush of water echoed as a roar around them, but the wave began sputtering and sinking at miniscule increments.

“I-I can’t hold this for long,” the prince grunted as sweat dripped into his eyes. 

“Right,” She-Ra murmured, holding the pitcher in front of herself as though she knew how to wield it. “Please… Sword of Protection, please do something.”

At her quiet request, the pitcher began to glow. She directed its open funnel towards the wave and stifled her panic as she closed her eyes, focusing on the sounds of rushing water that reverberated inside of her.

“I know I’m not enough… And I’m sorry for that,” Mara breathed as a tear slid down her cheeks. “But please… Please save my friends.”

She felt magical energy brimming inside of her. And when she blinked open her eyes, a brilliant beam of light shot out of the pitcher and sliced the wave in half. The separate waves crashed to either side of them, avoiding She-Ra and her team entirely.

Prince Aquanis crouched to his knees, panting for air while Shay broke into astonished laughter.

“That… that is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen. Do it again,” Shay said as the thrill of survival ran through their body.

“Just get us out of here,” Lev sighed, trembling and exhausted. “I never want to see water again.”

“Yes, friends,” Prince Aquanis breathed. “Once I catch my breath.”

There came a rumbling from below and She-Ra caught sight of another wave, smaller though still massive, approaching.

“Or maybe now?” She-Ra’s voice pinched as she tensed.

“Now is good,” the prince said and in a flurry, spun enormous gestures with his arms to summon water that carried them back up the cliffside. Soaked, bruised, and exhausted, the four of them lay where they were dropped as the magic of She-Ra went back into the sword.

With sore arms, Mara raised the Sword of Protection above her head to stare at the blue gem in the hilt. 

“You… can hear me, can’t you?” she murmured to it. 

It glistened in the moonlight as if in response.

“Guys?” Serenia’s voice called for them, but Gideon broke into a run, rushing ahead.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, you all look beat,” Gideon said, checking everyone over with concern tightening around his eyes.

“Went for a swim?” Nessa directed at Shay with a raised brow as she approached.

“Oh, yeah, the water’s great -- I recommend you jump in _right now_ ,” Shay retorted.

“What happened?” Serenia’s voice came out sharp as her gaze met Mara’s. “Should I be worried?”

“Maybe a little,” Mara admitted with a halfhearted shrug. “It’s a long story.”

“I just want some dry clothes and a warm bed and to never go swimming again,” Lev muttered. “I knew today was a bad day, and look where we are.”

“Nah, this is a great day: I made a TON of progress,” Shay said, sounding very assured. 

Lev’s eyebrow twitched before he yanked his soaked overshirt off and flung it at Shay’s face, the latter cackling wetly through it. 

Gideon chuckled and knelt down in front of Lev. “Let’s head to the ship, shall we?” he offered and Lev was never more grateful to be carried away.

“Mara, are you good carrying the scooter again?” Serenia asked as she helped her friend stand. “You look beat.”

“I’ll manage. Go ahead and I’ll catch up,” Mara said softly, actively trying not to be a burden now that she’d set off Serenia’s worry. Turning to look back, she caught sight of Prince Aquanis staring down at the rubble of his kingdom.


	9. Delegate

“Your highness,” Mara began, approaching the seated prince by the edge of the cliff. Her sword shifted into a gauntlet once more as she rested on the ground beside him. “Do you have somewhere safe to go?”

Mara understood where this was going next: if Prince Aquanis had nowhere to go, she would be defying the Council and even the recommendations of her team in order to provide him shelter. Sensing this, the hard lines on the prince’s face shifted to the flat marks of sorrow as he prepared to turn down Mara’s offer.

“It would be an honor to host you on our ship,” she said before he could make an excuse.

“You know, even as my entire kingdom fled to various villages, I never felt it would be right for me to leave,” he admitted with a sad chuckle. “My place is in my kingdom, and if I abandon it as well, then what do I have left?”

Mara looked over her shoulder, watching her team move ahead.

“Do you think me foolish for that?” the prince asked.

“I think we all do foolish things in an effort to do the right thing,” she said. “Your heart is in the right place, Prince Aquanis. But I think you’re wrong about your kingdom.”

“How do you mean?” he asked, watching her from the corner of his eye.

“All of your subjects have left their homes, that’s true,” she said, picking up a skipping stone from the dirt around them to examine it between her fingers. “Many of them will come back, and so will new people. Your buildings are broken right now, yes, but you will rebuild. It’s not going to be the same as it was: not necessarily the same people and structures, but it’s still a kingdom.”

She met his gaze before reaching over the edge and dropping the skipping stone down. It was several seconds before it made a soft plunk in the water below.

“A kingdom isn’t buildings or riches or people. It’s a concept,” Mara said. “Just like family, or home. Those can both change and grow, and you lose some, and you gain some, but they still hold meaning and significance in your life.”

“You speak as someone who has struggled with loss,” he said.

She stiffened at that, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around them. “My people… lost their home a long time ago,” she said. “Before I was born. When I was little, I never imagined that home could be any different from the space station where I grew up. But something about that loss reverberated through me when I was old enough to understand.”

She met his gaze. “There’s a weird grief that comes from a loss experienced by family you never got to meet,” she said. “It’s a strange feeling, like you’re missing a limb that you never had. You can spend your whole life trying to make up for it… or you can try to rebuild. Make a new home. Find a new place for yourself.”*

“Which brings you here, to Etheria, doesn’t it?” he asked and her gaze darted down. 

“You haven’t lost your kingdom yet, Prince Aquanis,” she murmured. “So please, please don’t suffer needlessly for the sake of a kingdom that hasn’t fallen.”

The lines on his face softened into a smile. “I suppose you must be right, Champion,” he said with a warm tone.

She struggled against a feeling like she’d tricked him into believing falsehoods about her own competence.

“B-besides, you never know how much a good night’s sleep can help!” she said. “A-and we have a spare cot. It’ll be like a slumber party.”

“I’ve never had a slumber party before,” the prince said, his tone amused. “You’ll have to teach me how.”

“I was never good at making friends growing up, so I’m not an expert,” Mara said as she rose to her feet, helping the prince stand. “But I’m sure Serenia and the others can teach us both.”

“Is it going to be alright for me to come?” he asked. “You Eternians are notoriously secretive.”

“Yes, and no,” Mara admitted. “But my team will understand, and… we just won’t tell the Council. As long as we don't expose you to too much of our tech, it should be ok.”

“From what I understand I’ll be the one receiving the most technologically advanced gate ever made by Eternians,” the prince said with a certain level of pride to his voice. “I’m truly walking away from this situation far richer when it comes to technology.”

Mara gave a chuckle at that. “You have a point,” she said. “Ugh, I hope the Council doesn’t have issues with that…” As she approached Lev’s scooter, a thought crossed her mind. “Do you mind if I ask…?” she began.

“Is that the question?” he teased.

She gave a little snort. “You… when we first met and you helped me with the….” she gestured at her neck, sickened at the thought of saying the word, like speaking its name would cause it to exist. “The, you know.”

“The gills.”

A shudder ran through her. “Yeahhhh, the gills,” she tried to sound casual. “When you were coaching me through it, you said I was born on Etheria. But I wasn’t,” she pointed out. “I was born on a space station near Eternia. Why did you say that?”

“I wasn’t speaking to you,” the prince said simply, admiring the scooter and petting its handlebars.

“Y-yes you were,” Mara said.

“No, I was speaking to the other you,” he said with a gentle smile.

“She-Ra? She’s not…” Mara began, but hesitated. “She’s not Etherian.” She stared down at her gleaming gauntlet, its blue jewel glistening in the moonlight.

“Really?” he asked, a knowing smile tugging at his lips. “Let me walk with She-Ra once more.”

Mara held up her gauntlet and cried, “For the honor of Grayskull.” Even before the words came out, the magic wrapped itself around her as though She-Ra was eager to take control. Sucking in a deep breath, Mara recalled the strange breathing problems she had in the castle. It was as though She-Ra acted on her own, taking over her body before the water rushed at them.

The thoughts faded as she became She-Ra once more.

Her hands moved to the sides of her neck. No gills. She was breathing like normal.

Lifting Lev’s vehicle effortlessly, She-Ra walked with Prince Aquanis along the coast.

“As the Prince of Salineas, I like to think one of my unofficial abilities is knowing the secrets at the depths of our world,” Aquanis said. “Mysteries unravel before me with ease, like an instinct. You, She-Ra, have the same depths as the oceans.”

“What does that mean?” She-Ra asked with a nervous chuckle. “I-I’m kind of an open book.”

“You do not yet know yourself,” he said simply. “When you finally do, you will see that you resonate with Etheria the way every princess does, or perhaps your connection is even stronger than ours.”

“This is just a mantle. She-Ra is a mantle I carry,” She-Ra said, feeling the weight of the prince’s words and expectations.

“Perhaps so,” he said with a hint of a smile. “And perhaps you will not become more than the person I see before me. But my instincts tell me that you have the potential for much more than you’ve ever dreamed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! I didn't realize I missed a day. Consulting work has been taking up a fair portion of my time, so there may be another delay, but fingers crossed I can get more story out in time.
> 
> *I've never really put into words the feeling of loss that comes with being Jewish. I'm part of a beautiful culture, but part of my inheritance is the knowledge of loss, of displacement, of never feeling entirely like I have a permanent home. This isn't strictly a Jewish experience -- many minorities feel this way and I hope I was able to convey it in a way that matters.
> 
> Mara's backstory is not the backstory of every Eternian. More information will be shared in future chapters.


	10. Detract

They spent the rest of the afternoon resting, preparing for a full night of work. At the start of nightfall, the Grayskull Squadron and Prince Aquanis gathered around the cramped table, elbows brushing, eating strange but delightfully sweet griddle cakes made of crackers and eggs that hadn’t been unpacked from the ship.* Gideon’s grin shone with pride as he watched everyone enjoying the food he made.

“This is really good,” Nessa said, her tone firm so it sounded less like a compliment and more like a review.

“Truly delicious,” Prince Aquanis agreed with a smile. “When my kingdom is restored, I must treat all of you to delicious foods of my culture, in return for your kindness.”

“It’s not bad -- needs cinnamon,” Shay said, moving around the remaining cake on their plate.

“Just finish it so you can tell us what progress you made yesterday,” Lev said. “You’ve been refusing to tell us anything.”

“Gotta savor the thrill of it,” Shay said. “Gotta soak in the calories of expectation.”

At that, Lev stabbed his fork into the cake on Shay’s plate, and shoved the whole thing in his mouth. 

“Well played,” Shay grumbled.

“Just don’t choke,” Serenia cautioned Lev. 

Gideon brought him a glass of water as Lev struggled to swallow it down. “Sorry, the crackers were a little dry,” Gideon said.

“I made my point,” Lev wheezed before he downed the entire glass of water. He pointed at Shay as he finished the last gulp. “Now talk.”

“We can measure the magical output of the Pearl, because we have a couple of handy-dandy portable receivers,” Shay launched into an explanation that left everyone confused.

“I told you that our tools can’t measure magical output,” Lev insisted, losing patience.

“And what do you mean by receivers? You don’t mean the runestones, right?” Mara asked, her voice quiet to the point of pleading as she silently asked Shay to explain.

The hacker tapped at their nose twice, making a little sing-song noise in the back of their throat. “Not the runestones,” they pointed out with a grin. “Hey, Mara, how are you feeling?” their tone shifted to something playful.

“Uh… fine? Good? Full?” she offered.

“How were you feeling when you were in the castle? Not so fine, right? Having a little trouble breathing?” they asked.

Serenia’s focus sharpened on her and Mara winced. “Y-you saw that?”

“Yep.”

“What was that?” Mara’s voice became a hushed whisper.

“You notice how that only happened when you got reeeeeal close to the Pearl? Like you had to be in the same room as it?” Shay said.

“That doesn’t make sense,” Prince Aquanis insisted. “My people and I are the only ones connected to the Pearl.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Your Fishiness,” Shay said. “It’s okay though. Sharing is caring. Except maybe in this case.”

Shay placed their datapad at the center of the table on top of a stack of griddle cakes. Emerging from it was a crude projection of a circular object with lines radiating off of it, to two glowing stick figures.

“See, the funny thing is, the Pearl isn’t behaving the way it’s supposed to,” Shay said. “But it hasn’t for a while. See, the princess -- or in your case, prince -- is the only one who is supposed to derive power from this runestone. But the runestone has been connecting with absolutely anything related to your kingdom. First its people, then the ocean waves themselves.”

Mara felt her stomach clench as the air left her. “You think the runestone is the source of these tidal waves.”

Shay gave a silent thumbs-up as Prince Aquanis clutched his head and stared down at the table. Shock and alarm moved through him like the tides. Mara reached over to rest a hand on his arm and Gideon gave the prince’s shoulder a comforting squeeze.

“How could I not have realized sooner?” the prince asked himself.

“How were you supposed to know?” Shay said. “It was probably a gradual thing, and more power always seems like a good idea until it isn’t.”

“This is perfect,” Nessa said, her gaze distant as her mind roved over the details.

“Harsh,” Shay commented. “Cold-blooded.”

“If we use the Pearl as an energy source for the Sea Gate, and funnel the run-off into the power grid, it’ll balance the runestone and give us a bigger energy store to work with.”

Lev and Shay nodded along, but Serenia quirked an eyebrow.

“Yeah, all of this is great in theory, but how are we going to connect the runestone, a piece of Etherian magic, to the Sea Gate, a piece of Eternian technology?” Serenia said and looked around the table. “Any takers?” No one spoke up.

“I may be of assistance,” Light Hope flickered into existence, clipping through the center of the table as everyone jumped, their plates clattering to the floor. Lev slipped out of his chair, but Prince Aquanis caught him.

Mara was the first to speak, letting out a relieved chuckle as her heart pounded. “You scared us, Hope,” she said.

Light Hope looked confused. “But the datapad was projecting a hologram above the table,” she said. “I thought perhaps that would be the most convenient place to stand.”

“I-it’s fine,” Mara said as people tried to pick up their plates and mess before gathering closer to the table. “What were you saying?”

“Eternian scholars theorize that one of She-Ra’s latent abilities can help forge a connection between Etherian magic and our technology,” Light Hope said. 

“H-how…?” Mara felt expectation settle on her shoulders as all eyes in the room turned towards her.

“Unknown at this time,” Light Hope said. “Further research is required.”

“We don’t have time to research,” Lev said, as Prince Aquanis assisted him back to his chair. “Pardon my phrasing, but we’ll have to hit the ground running with this one.”

Mara swallowed back her fear with a slow nod. “Right,” she breathed, her voice tight. “We’ll figure it out as we go. We will.”

“I’m better with improvising anyway,” Shay admitted with a lazy grin. “Maybe if you’re real nice I’ll give you some pointers.”

“Some pointers that don’t involve slamming your back into the wall because of a huge tidal wave?” Lev asked with a raised brow.

“Nnnnno promises,” Shay said. 

Chatter rose around them as the team began working out their plan. Mara didn’t realize she was staring at the blue gem embedded in her gauntlet until she felt Serenia’s hands on her shoulders. Mara stiffened at the touch, withdrawing at first.

“Hey, didn’t mean to scare you,” Serenia breathed. “A lot’s happening and I’m worried about you.”

Mara gave her hand a squeeze and offered a reassuring smile that didn’t meet her eyes. “I’ll fill you in on everything after we’ve finished the mission, okay?” she insisted.

Serenia reluctantly nodded. “Ok….” her words sounded more like a warning than an agreement. Within that word sat an unspoken understanding between them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *The food the crew (and Aquanis) are eating is matzoh brei. I can’t find a recipe for it that I like online so I’m giving you one here now:
> 
> Ingredients:  
> 4 sheets unflavored matzoh/matzo/matzah  
> (Can sub for a sleeve of salt-free table crackers if there is no matzoh in your area)  
> 2 eggs  
> Running water  
> Cinnamon  
> Salt  
> (optional 1 tsp sugar for flavor)  
> Oil for the pan
> 
> Run each sheet of matzoh under the water for about 10 seconds. Immediately break up the sheet into a big bowl (it will fall apart in your hands so keep the bowl close). You’ll want pieces no bigger than 1.5 inches or so. (If it doesn’t break easily, run it under water for another 10 seconds.) After you’ve broken up all 4 sheets, scramble 2 eggs and add them to the matzoh. Add a pinch of salt and a generous amount of cinnamon (and optional 1 tsp sugar). Mix until the eggs have coated each piece of matzoh.
> 
> Set a skillet to medium-low heat and add oil or butter. When the pan is warm enough to pan-fry, scoop the brei “batter” (and chunks) into the skillet and heat through, flipping it once (or twice if you’re fancy). Cook it like french toast.
> 
> Serve with maple syrup. For a savory version, omit the cinnamon and serve with sour cream.


	11. Dent

The lights in the sky faded to a dusky rose with the shifting of the moons. The tides receded with a harsh scraping noise as the Grayskull Squadron ship hovered just slightly higher than the top of the water-worn castle. Wires and boxes slid from the open ramp of the ship as Prince Aquanis controlled waves to carry the parts over to the statue graveyard that lined the perimeter of the kingdom.

Lev sat on the remains of the tallest statue while Nessa, Serenia and Gideon dug out the foundation of the gate. Each movement of the earth resulted in water rapidly filling the ditch, and so the group dug deeper into wet, unsteady sand.

“Prince Aquanis, any chance you can help drain the water in this area?” Gideon called, catching Serenia before she slid into the ditch for the third time.

“A-a little busy here friends,” the prince said as Shay stepped surreptitiously onto the wave, their arms filled with a variety of circuit boards.

“H-hey, try not to get these wet,” Shay cautioned the prince who chuckled helplessly in response.

“I shall try my best to make this water dry,” the prince offered with an equally dry tone as Shay struggled to keep their balance.

Inside the ship, Mara picked up the last of the data crystals. “Light Hope? Once I step off the ship, engage autopilot and land on a flat surface of the cliffside above,” she said.

“Yes, Mara,” the hologram said with a gentle nod.

Mara hesitated near the door as she watched her team work below. Shay and Lev took to attaching wiring and crystals to the circuit boards, while the rest of the team dug tirelessly. Prince Aquanis awaited Mara’s arrival.

“I can do this…” she murmured to herself as a chill ran through her. Meeting Light Hope’s gaze, the words tumbled from her mouth: “Please order me to do this right.”

“I do not give your orders, Mara,” Light Hope said, tilting her head and raising her brows.

“I-I know, and I know it sounds stupid, but… but if you tell me I have to do it right, maybe I can,” she said. “It was a dumb thought, I-”

“Mara, Champion of Etheria, I order you to please do this right,” Light Hope said in her usual stiff tone, though her expression softened after the words came out. 

Mara gave a relieved chuckle, her lips twitching with a smile. “Thanks, Hope,” she said. As she stepped onto the wave provided by the prince, she wondered where to even begin. Then she lost balance, stumbled and dropped two circuit boards.

“Careful!” Lev hissed as Shay rushed over to collect the fallen tech. 

“They’re waterproof, Shay,” Nessa reminded them.

“Yeah, they _say_ that, but experience says otherwise,” Shay said.

As Mara’s feet settled onto damp sand, Prince Aquanis took a moment to wipe the perspiration from his brow. “Very well, how shall I help next?”

As if on cue, a tidal wave rolled in, flooding the ditch the team was digging and splashing Shay and Lev’s tech. “Oh COME ON,” Lev hollered at the wave.

“I’m on it!” Prince Aquanis said and began pushing the tides further back.

“Sorry, sorry,” Mara’s apology was genuine as she brought the rest of the load over to Lev. Her voice was tense as she considered her words. “What do you need me to do?” she asked him, when what she really meant was ‘How do I make this work?’

“Over here!” Serenia called. “Help us empty the water from the ditch.”

Mara focused on her sword. “Please… please give me something that can help my friends empty the ditch,” she murmured to it. The sapphire gem glistened, as the metal shimmered and molded into a familiar shape.

“AGAIN?” Mara snapped at the pitcher-shaped Sword of Protection in her hand. “I-I don’t even know what to say. I mean, you’re not wrong. Honestly, I don’t know what I was expecting.”

She approached the others with a helpless shrug and then tried scooping out the sandy water from the wide hole they had dug.

“Oh that’s…. not going to do much,” Nessa muttered, shaking her head. 

“Maybe see if Lev needs help after all,” Gideon suggested.

As Mara turned to Lev, she saw him and Shay hard at work interconnecting the circuit boards with wires and attaching data crystals to select areas. “Uhhh this part is a little hard to explain,” Lev said. 

She looked to Prince Aquanis, whose faintly shaking arms swayed with rhythmic motions as he folded the low tide in on itself repeatedly.

What was Mara supposed to do, to help? She stood on the cusp of innovation with only a pitcher in her hand, and recognized the gravitas of her own uselessness.

She thought of Light Hope’s words: _”I order you to do this right,”_ and then the soft smile. But it wasn’t enough. She needed someone to give her explicit orders, to tell her what to do, to give her an assignment, a meaning.

Mara stood as their insignificant leader and belatedly realized her purpose: the one who was meant to lead was She-Ra. But as she raised her pitcher and focused on its magic, a sense of dread moved through her. 

She heard that strange buzzing noise in her ears, followed by the roar of swelling tides. For a flicker of a moment, she recalled the force of the water that slammed them into the walls of the castle.

_”Do you hear that?”_

_“The tide? But it is far too early!”_

Mara gripped the side of her neck and felt them: the foreign little slits that shouldn’t have been there. Her gaze moved to the castle as a tsunami swarmed on the horizon.

“The Pearl is reacting to She-Ra,” she murmured, her breath too hollow to voice her own words.

But as she tried to halt her own transformation, magic surged from the sapphire crystal in her hand, encircling her in blinding light.


	12. Dominance

Mara’s body was rocked by waves of otherworldly power like the push and pull of the ocean. As she fought against the drag of it, the magic warped her form, twisting and stretching her into something to suit its purpose. She gasped for air as magic rushed into her lungs, blinding her with white-hot light.

She-Ra awoke to the sound of screams and the rippling roar of the tsunami. She gripped the sides of her neck and panted for air as fear and dread battled against the foreign feeling of confidence. Then, She-Ra stood as if by her own volition while Mara struggled within, begging her to exit the transformation, to go back into the sword, to no avail.

Prince Aquanis’ arms trembled as he held the wave in place, while the water continued to mount higher before them. Shay shielded Lev with their body, the technology scattered around them and temporarily forgotten. Gideon held Nessa and Serenia close in the ditch, their heads tucked down to their chins as they awaited the forcible impact. 

She-Ra raised her sword above her head and, with a cry that echoed through the roar of the waves, sliced through the air. The wave separated and crumpled in on itself, but more water rushed to its defense.

The Champion of Etheria marched forward with the prowess of a general as a strange energy radiated off of her.

“Keep working on the foundation of the gate,” she ordered her team. She moved to stand next to the prince of Salineas. “We’ve got this.” 

He gave her a twitch of a smile and a nod before She-Ra’s hand moved to rest on the prince’s shoulder. He stiffened as that strange energy took root in him, his body alighting with a powerful aura of magic. As his eyes began to glow, he pushed the tides back with a force that scattered the nearest wave into droplets like rain. 

Relief flowed through his body as he nodded and grinned at her. “We _do_ have this,” he said, excitement lighting the lines of his face. As the next wave approached, he raised both hands to freeze it in place, creating an invisible barrier around the outskirts of his kingdom.

As the power radiated from her skin, She-Ra turned to the ditch that her team was digging, and moved her free hand in an arc. All the water that had flooded into it, and a fair amount of damp sand, was lifted into the air and shunted into the stilled tsunami before them.

Lev was quick to give orders. “Gideon, bring me to the ditch. Nessa, Serenia, grab these circuit boards and line them up the way Shay shows you. Do NOT get them out of order,” he said. 

“How are they going to stay in place with the water?” Serenia called back as she hefted several of the oversized boards.

“Magnets,” Shay answered simply.

“They’re attuned to fixed points beneath the upper crust of the planet,” Lev said. “There are magnetic systems connected throughout that keep structures in place without causing permanent damage to the land. Less invasive.”

Shay’s version of showing people how to align things properly was to point at the thing, turn their hands in a certain direction, point to the spot, and with an authoritative voice say: “Hmmmm that’y.” Nessa rolled her eyes at this, but Serenia found the process straightforward, if not ideal.

With the circuit boards aligned, a series of wires spilled out of one end with no connection point in sight until Shay began dragging over a strangely heavy, short metal rod. 

“What is that thing anyway, a weapon?” Serenia asked as she rushed over to their side.

“This goes to that and does the thing,” Shay offered as they struggled with the weight of it. Serenia’s grasp on the object helped lift and carry it.

“What they _mean_ is that this is our connection to syphon the energy of the Pearl to the power grid,” Lev said as Gideon assisted him with the inspection process. “Looks good.”

“I know I do,” Shay said with a smirk that made Lev shake his head. 

“Thanks, I hate it,” Nessa muttered. “Now we connect all the wires to the transmitter, right?”

“Right--” Lev tried to reply, but the waves rose around them, the force of their rushing waters drowning out his words as though the oceans recognized the threat posed by this technology.

The reverberating rumble of the tides echoed around them even as She-Ra worked to cut down mounting tsunami, and Prince Aquanis held his ground. His feet dug deeper into the sand as he strained to push back the ocean while the team worked quickly to connect all loose wires to the device, even as the shadow of a wave rose to block out the light of the moons.

“Last one!” Lev called out as the final wire found its home in the transmitter. But nothing happened. “She-Ra, we need you to connect it to the Pearl!”

She-Ra turned her gaze to Prince Aquanis, who was struggling against the force of the wall of water around them. 

“I-it’s alright,” he said as sweat dripped down the sides of his face. “I can handle this.”

“You can’t do this alone,” She-Ra murmured.

He gave a helpless smile. “I’ll have to try. There isn’t another option.”

Barely visible within the wall of waves, figures drew close, their ghostly presences wafting and bobbing unnaturally in the water. Several floated towards the top arc of the wave, and She-Ra raised her sword, clenching her hands into fists as she tamped down Mara’s fear.

A humanoid hand pressed against the wall of water before slipping past Prince Aquanis’ barrier.

“What are you?” She-Ra demanded, her voice coarse as she prepared her sword to strike.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoooo almost done with Salineas. I hope you're all enjoying the horror episode of this fanfiction. Comment below if my writing gave you nightmares -- you know, for science.


	13. Dominion

As the translucent pink hand pushed past the barrier of water, its head soon followed, revealing the familiar face of a Moon-Jelly Salinean.

“We came to help,” she said as more amphibious Sea Elves pushed through the wave, some dropping down onto the sand from above. “You didn’t think you were going to do all of this alone, Prince Aquanis, did you?” She quirked an invisible eyebrow at him.

He gave an exhausted chuckle in return as sorrow worked across his features. “I didn’t want to put all of you in danger,” he said. “This is my duty. You don’t understand what the Pearl is doing -- it is safer to stay in the village.”

“Safer, yes,” she said. “But we’re your people and we want more than anything to help you save our kingdom.” The prince’s eyes glistened with unshed tears as eighteen villagers stepped out in front of him. 

“Please, your highness, give us our orders,” an anglerfish Sea Elf asked, his gruff voice carrying a gentle tone. Those words resonated through She-Ra’s mind, but the twinge of attachment to the phrase felt distant, like a wall had sprung to sever the meaning from the sentence.

 _I’m not a leader,_ Mara thought to herself in the recesses of her own mind. A sensation like emotion, but from a separate mind, bubbled from inside of her. It felt like confirmation.

 _I pretend to take charge. But the moment things get difficult or confusing, I give up and ask people to give me orders,_ she thought. _I want other people to take over. I couldn’t even stop my transformation._

Again, there resonated that feeling like another person’s agreement, but with it came a flare of something darker, angrier. Mara knew it was directed at her, but didn’t know how to fix it.

She-Ra lowered her sword and watched the dozen-and-a-half amphibious Sea Elves line up along the invisible barrier, arms outstretched and moving in graceful patterns as they hummed. Their energy pushed back on the tsunami before them, pressing down in response to each rise of the tides.

“We will hold back the water,” the prince said. “Go finish the gate.”

She-Ra nodded, releasing her hold on the Prince. His aura faded and the gargantuan wave roared above them. But as he struggled and his people focused, a pulse of energy reverberated between them, spreading along the line of Sea Elves that stood their ground before him. A powerful light moved through them all, the glow flowing off of their bodies.

“We shall protect the Pearl,” he grunted as he pushed back on the wave with shaking arms.

She-Ra gave a resolute nod and rushed to the foundations of the new gate. Serenia and Nessa stood with shovels at the ready while Lev, resting against Gideon, and Shay worked tirelessly on their datapads.

“What happens next?” Gideon asked, his voice gentle in the hopes of not overwhelming his leader.

She stared at the layout of technology resting in the damp sand, the work and effort born of the minds and labor of her team. Mara had no answer from inside the depths of herself. But She-Ra moved without hesitation, resting the tip of her sword against the bulbous end of the metal rod that protruded from the dirt.

As She-Ra closed her eyes to concentrate, she began to glow. The waves around them shuddered before drawing closer, pushing their way past the line of Sea Elves that dug their feet into the sand and refused to move even as they were engulfed in water. 

She-Ra opened glowing eyes to feed her energy into the metal rod, watching the waves of power flow over it. It pulsed with white-hot light to the beat of She-Ra’s heart.

From inside the castle there came a buzzing noise that grew in volume until the very sand around them trembled. With the sharp movements of the Sea Elves and their prince, the tsunami was forced back several feet. But the reverberations from inside the castle grew louder, echoing around them, and the wave spread taller and wider to swallow the kingdom in shadow. 

Electricity crackled around them. The circuit boards lit up, one-by-one, as they hummed with energy, the force of the magnetism digging them deeper into the dirt. Energy rumbled before them as an intricate hologram blipped into existence before extinguishing itself. It flashed twice more before rising, a transparent door built of glowing lines of code that threaded together in curling patterns. But the code cracked before the Grayskull Squadron’s eyes, and the wall turned red.

“It’s not working,” Lev’s voice was tense. “It needs a secondary input, up there.” He pointed towards the section marked by a circular pattern and the word “Sea”* high above them that flashed as it struggled to exist.

The energy of the Pearl mounted within She-Ra, as did the resistance of the waves. She didn’t say a word as she pulled her sword off of the transmitter and raised her weapon to the sky.

The largest chunks of broken statues glowed to life with energy, rising through the sheer force of her willpower and the uncompromising essence of magic. They aligned to create a staircase towards the input. Her hands that gripped the sword began to burn from the sheer torrent of power and she heard the cries of Prince Aquanis and his people as their auras overwhelmed them.

Leaping up the stone-lined path, She-Ra pointed her sword towards the small circular symbol at the center of the wall. Shrouded in darkness from the force of the waves, the water splashed and singed her hands, but she held her sword steady. Through the ear-splitting buzzing noise and the searing heat of the unyielding magic, She-Ra focused on feeding the excessive energy into the gate’s entry point. 

The waves could not be held back any longer, and as a rumble echoed through the kingdom, the rest of the Grayskull Squadron fell back towards the castle, aware that there was no safe place to go. Gideon climbed the shell wall, depositing Lev as far up as he could manage. Then he braced himself against a spire and reached down to help pull the rest of his team up the structure.

She-Ra’s entire body felt as though it was cracking under the pressure of the power inside of her. She screamed in agony as her mind desperately fought to escape the searing heat that engulfed her. Yet when Mara begged for freedom from the torment, She-Ra refused to stand down, as though Mara’s will was a nuisance.

There came the creeping realization that, in regards to this mantle, Mara’s body was expendable: She-Ra would live on, regardless of Mara’s fate.

Just as the clarity breached her mind, the gate turned a welcoming green, then blue, before solidifying. No longer able to be held back, the wave rushed the kingdom, but as it reached the Sea Gate, it moved as a gentle spill around it. Water flooded the area one final time before pulling back to rest, lapping peacefully at the foundations of the structures.

As the excessive power waned, so too did the glow of the auras around the Salineans and She-Ra. Prince Aquanis and his people let out a cheer that was echoed by the Grayskull Squadron, while She-Ra’s pain faded to a distant memory, her wounds already healed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent 20 minutes with a First Ones translation guide and a screencap of the Sea Gate’s input, and all I could get from the writing on the Sea Gate in episode five was “Seeeeee manamana,” so I gave up and decided it was trying to say the word “sea.”


	14. Declaration

To She-Ra’s left, Lev was explaining the Sea Gate’s upkeep to the Moon Jelly Salinean and her team. 

“Here’s a scroll of the instructions,” he said, handing her a roll of parchment while they sat on the steps of the castle. “I know they’re in our language, but I included a ton of pictures so you guys would be able to figure it out on your own. If anything is unclear and you reach out to us for help, our team will come right away. We’re leaving a basic emergency communication device with Prince Aquanis so he can contact us if there are problems. We’ll alert our superiors so they can make sure to check in on you guys.”

“The instructions look straightforward enough,” the Salinean replied. “We won’t be able to repair or rebuild the gate without She-Ra’s power, but we can certainly keep it running.”

To She-Ra’s right, Nessa was explaining the next steps to Prince Aquanis.

“Right, so the perimeter still needs to be reinforced, but at least we built a door for you,” Nessa’s voice was all business as she went over the instructions. “You’re going to want to make a solid, sturdy wall around your kingdom, preferably stone or whatever your castle is made of, connected to the Sea Gate. It’s going to take time.”

“Now that the waves aren’t being controlled and turned violent by the Pearl, we will make haste to rebuild,” Prince Aquanis said, gratitude overflowing from his tone. “I sincerely cannot thank you all enough. You have saved and reunited my kingdom.”

Nessa, never good with compliments, simply pinched her lips together and shrugged. “It’s literally our jobs,” she insisted, but a smile of gratitude quirked at the corners of her lips.

She-Ra looked down at her hands, her eyes tracing the lines where burn marks should have been. She silently backed away from the group and entered the castle. 

There was a quiet peace to the damaged enclave, its soaked, torn drapes flapping gently with the cool ocean breeze. She-Ra looked up at the glistening Pearl and touched the side of her neck. No gills.

“You tried to kill me,” she murmured to it. “I’m not sure why. I just hope you see now that I want to help.”

There came no hum, no rush of water, no buzzing of any kind. The Pearl simply sat silent in its resting place above the shell-shaped throne.

She-Ra took a deep breath and focused, slowly sliding her essence back into her sword. Mara awoke to a hand on her shoulder. She met Serenia’s gaze.

“Back to the ship?” Mara asked.

“Yeah. And we have a lot to catch up on,” Serenia said.

Mara couldn’t help feeling she was in trouble. As she stepped out of the castle, she approached Shay.

“I left my datapad on the ship,” she explained. “Can you contact Light Hope and tell her to direct the ship down here, and make preparations for a water landing?”

“Yeah, yeah, sure, sure,” Shay said quickly. “According to my readings, the magical output of the Pearl is perfectly in balance. Hey, wanna know something weird?”

Mara did not get a chance to reply, so instead she braced herself as Shay dove into it.

“We’ve been colonizing this planet for a couple of decades now, right?” they said. “And like, we research the magic of this place. That’s the whole point of everything. But you mean to tell me we never developed a way of measuring the magic here until some dumbass hacker decided to measure the residual energy coming from you and Prince Fishface?”

Mara struggled to respond, unsure if there was a joke or sarcasm hiding within the hacker’s words. “I-I… uh…” she began.

“Yeah, yep, and it’s funny, isn’t it? It’s funny how you were given orders to balance the planet, and what did the issue wind up being both times so far? Magical energy output,” they said. “Hmmmmmm. I wonder how our brilliant superiors figured out the balance was off when they have no tools for measurement. Surely this is a mystery for the ages.”

“I-I…” Mara began, feeling her pulse quicken.

Muscular arms slinked around her, pulling Mara into an unexpected hug that she accidentally shrieked into. As soon as she realized the hugger was Prince Aquanis, she broke into laughter.

“You scared m-,” she tried to say, but he was already showering her with kind words.

“You’ve done it: your people, you Eternians, have saved my kingdom!” he said. “I’m sorry I ever had a moment of doubt. From now on, your people are our foremost allies. Tell us what you need and we will help our Eternian neighbors at any time, for any reason.”

“Wow, that’s…” she began. 

His hands found their way to both of her cheeks and he leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead. “Thank you,” he murmured with sincerity, but she could hardly hear him over the pounding of her heart.

“Anytime,” she breathed, blushing as the prince bowed his head to perform the same gesture to Serenia who wrinkled her nose in response and met Mara’s gaze.

As Gideon carried Lev over towards them, the prince in all his joy pulled Lev and Gideon into the same kind of forehead kiss. Lev’s face shot a deep red while Gideon grinned at the action, his cheeks turning the same bronze as his hair.

“Thank you for bestowing such an honorable gesture upon us, Your Highness,” Gideon said as Lev covered his face and tried to hide behind his shoulder. 

Prince Aquanis reached towards Shay who put up a hand in response. “Fist-bump, Your Fishiness,” they said and taught him how to do the action. The prince’s eyes widened with excitement as he rushed to show his people the move.

Nessa quirked an eyebrow and looked satisfied that she had missed out on part of the celebration. “Are we going?” she asked. A wide shadow moved over them as the ship came down from above, landing gently in the water with the ramp descending to meet the hard surface of rock below the castle stairs

“No more sand!” Lev cheered as Gideon rushed him into the ship while Nessa followed closely after, muttering about her back and shoveling. Shay walked backwards up the ramp, lazily saluting the Salineans as they moved.

As Mara turned to follow, Serenia’s hand on her wrist stopped her. Her heart froze in her chest. Was Serenia mad after all? But as she met the other woman’s gaze, Serenia pointed to the approaching prince.

“We have your emergency device,” he said, “but I confess that I’d like more excuses to see you and your team again. Now that I am the only one who can control the tides, with the Pearl’s power finally stabilized, I have much to offer. However, my people are clever and can find a way to assist you via other means. Please don’t forget us.”

“How can I ever forget you and your kingdom?” Mara asked with a gentle chuckle. “You’ve taught me so much about what it means to be Etherian. I think there’s so much more I can learn from you.”

The blue lines on the prince’s face seemed to glow with his smile. “This pleases me,” he said. “We were happy to help the Kingdom of Bright Moon, and it was an honor working beside you to build the Sea Gate. Wherever you’re going next, I’m certain it will be another wonderful adventure.”

“We’ll be sure to tell you all about it as soon as we can visit,” Serenia said. “For now, we’re going to restore the balance of Etheria.”

“Best of luck and be safe,” he said, resting hands on both Mara’s and Serenia’s shoulders.


	15. Despair

Too exhausted to sleep, Shay, Nessa and Lev sat in the kitchenette while Gideon heated up more rations. There was debate over whether the hour of the meal constituted its function (“it’s the morning, so this is breakfast”) or whether the amount of time they were awake determined its purpose (“We worked through the night, so this meal is dinner”).

While Nessa and Shay bickered, Lev spoke up to Gideon. “I have a weird question,” he began. “It’s been on my mind: there’s a lot of royalty on this planet. I guess this is a monarchy, but with only one queen?”

Gideon smiled as he grilled something that looked vaguely food-shaped. “‘Princess’ is a title bestowed upon people who connect with the runestones,” he said. “Usually that power is passed through blood lineage, but not always. The runestones are the determining factor.”

“So it’s not like a vote or anything, it’s by magic?” Lev asked. “Is that kind of similar to the system we use?”

“The Primogen Council is chosen in ways that are honestly a mystery, even to me,” Gideon admitted. “Their identities are kept anonymous, so we don’t really know what factors result in their choosing. But the system works for us, just as this very public vague monarchy is chosen by magic rocks in this world.”

“Both systems sound ridiculous when you put it that way,” Lev admitted.

“All things do, when you try to take an outsider’s view of it,” Gideon said. “Any other questions?”

“Yeah, why did the file on Prince Aquanis call him ‘Princess Aquanna’?” he asked.

“Prince Aquanis’ subspecies of Sea Elves is born entirely female, but can change their sex at will,” Gideon said, a warm smile pulling at his face. “He identifies as male, but I guess the file was never updated.”

“Change genders at will, sweeeet,” Shay murmured, taking a break from their battle over the great breakfast debate.

Lev sat in shock, his mouth agape. “He’s trans too and nobody told me?” he finally demanded when he remembered how words worked.

Shay burst into laughter. “Oh, man, Prince Fishface really was your soulmate,” they crowed.

Lev’s face shot bright red. “I mean, I would have wanted to talk to him about what it’s like for him, see how it compares to my experience…” he mumbled.

Gideon winced. “Ooof. Sorry, Lev,” he said. “I wasn’t even thinking about that. I’m so sorry.”

Lev sunk onto the table, his head resting on his arms. “It’s fine,” he muttered. “I’ll talk to him after the mission is over.”

“Gideon’s punishment is that he has to give up one of his stuffed animals to you,” Shay said, rising to their feet. “I’ll go get it.”

“Ooohhhh, nooooo,” Gideon called after them, clearly amused. 

As Shay made their way down the hall, they heard the distinctive sound of sobbing coming from the sleeping quarters. There came the unsettling squish of something foreign and distinctly not-floor-like beneath their foot. Looking down, Shay pried a stuffed animal from under their shoe and tucked it under their arm. They hesitated by the open door, listening in.

“I found blood on your pillow, Mara,” Serenia’s voice was gentle, but firm. “Of course I think you’re hiding something from me. I just want to know what it is.”

Mara tried for words, but couldn’t seem to settle on anything in particular. Shay peeked in enough to see Mara sitting on her bed, shaking while Serenia held her hand.

“And your last transformation to She-Ra,” Serenia began. “It didn’t look like something you had control of.”

Mara coughed out a sob and shook her head, wiping messily at her face.

“I’m not mad at you,” Serenia insisted. “I just want to know what’s going on.”

“Sh-she’s too powerful, a-and I’m too weak.” Mara finally said, shuddering. 

“Who is?” Serenia asked, pain evident in her voice.

“She-Ra,” Mara croaked.

“I keep seeing you touch your neck,” she said to Mara. Serenia’s hand moved to the side of Mara’s neck and she winced at the touch. “Did she do something to you?”

“The Pearl, or… maybe She-Ra, had me develop gills, but it wasn’t always when I needed them,” Mara said. “Sometimes it happened when I wasn’t in the water, and… it might have happened when I wasn’t in She-Ra’s form. I-I don’t know. Maybe it was all in my head.”

Serenia’s fingers moved along the side of Mara’s neck, seeking out the unnatural tissue, but Mara grunted and twitched, pushing the other woman’s hand away. 

“Sorry,” Serenia murmured. “I don’t feel or see anything now, so let’s just assume it was a weird side-effect of the Pearl, okay? Now what is going on with you and that mantle?”

“Sh-she took over,” Mara said carefully. “It hurt. When I was trying to seal the gate with the Pearl’s energy, it hurt like I was being burned alive. I wanted to stop, but She-Ra didn’t let me.”

“What do you mean that she didn’t ‘let’ you?” Serenia murmured.

Mara’s fingers moved to the side of her neck, scratching once more. “It’s like she was in charge,” Mara said. “But that’s my fault because I wanted someone else to be in charge. I wanted someone else to tell me what to do, and She-Ra did just that, even when I begged her not to.”

She raised her head and for the first time, caught sight of Shay, who stood in the doorway, no longer hiding to listen in. Mara opened her mouth as though to ask her teammate what they were doing.

Shay instead took that as an invitation to walk in. They sat on the floor in front of the two women, and held out the stuffed animal for Mara.

Confused, but grateful, she took the plush toy and clutched it close. “Th-thanks,” Mara murmured.

“You looked like you needed it,” Shay said. And that was all they offered: no questions, no demands for explanations, not even a request to stay. They simply sat on the floor while Mara held the plushie and cried against Serenia’s shoulder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to the friend who accidentally inspired Shay’s character. She knows who she is, and I am so proud to call her a friend.


	16. Dread

“The Champion of Etheria must receive her next orders,” Light Hope’s command was simple to the point of bluntness. The crew, having gathered in the main hall of Crystal Castle, stood in awkward silence, eyeing each other as if waiting for a cue to speak up.

“We only just got back,” Serenia murmured, but even she seemed to recognize that a fight was pointless. “None of us has slept.”

“Time is of the essence,” Light Hope insisted with an ill-fitting warmth to her tone as though that might fix the exhaustion and discomfort. “I will ensure Mara’s journey is safe and successful.”

Mara’s ached from the taxing stress and the painful sobbing. The thought of transforming intentionally into She-Ra sent cold shivers up her spine. Nonetheless, she nodded.

“I need to update them about the tech we’ve provided to Salineas,” she said. 

Lev bit his lip as he sat on the scooter. “Do you want me… to write up an explanation of why?” he asked. “I think if we can just explain that it was the only reasonable option to the Council, they’ll understand.”

“It’s fine,” Mara said, her voice laden with weariness. “I know the reasons why we did it, and I take full responsibility as your commanding officer.”

That did not provide even the coldest of comfort to her team. 

“You all stay here, get some rest, and I’ll be back soon,” Mara insisted. Serenia began reaching towards her, but Mara, unaware, walked a straight path out of the castle.

As soon as the ship was in the air, Mara folded herself into the captain’s chair. She cupped her head as though waiting to see whether a headache or fatigue would strike first. As her mind roved over the details of her last transformation, a translucent hand moved into her line of sight.

The light of the holographic hand glitched and fizzled as it made contact with Mara’s neck. The Champion gave a start and looked into Light Hope’s eyes, confusion and fear ebbing at her features.

Light Hope tilted her head as she traced her illusory hand along the side of Mara’s neck.

“I watched Serenia perform this gesture on you,” the AI stated. “I have an encyclopedia of more than 500,000 gestures and their meanings, but this one was not listed.”

Mara flushed a deep crimson and fought with herself over whether to pull away. Such an intimate touch seemed inappropriate at a time like this, but Light Hope’s attempt at repeating behavior was too sweet not to encourage.

“U-uh, it’s not really a gesture,” Mara murmured, swallowing back the lump in her throat as her gaze connected with Light Hope’s. “S-Serenia was just… trying to comfort me.”

“Does this provide you comfort?” Light Hope’s voice was soft with just a hint of playfulness. Mara wondered for a moment if she was being teased.

“Wh… when you do it, yes,” Mara whispered.

“You do not look comforted,” Light Hope’s voice grew softer. “You appear agitated. Your pupils are dilated. Perhaps I’m performing this incorrectly.”

The ship came to a sudden halt before it began its descent. The jolt of movement awoke Mara from the moment and Light Hope pulled away.

“Apologies,” the AI said. “I was not focused enough on the autopilot.”

Mara moved to her feet, brushing past the holographic form before her as she moved towards the front-facing windows. As they approached the She-Ra shaped obelisk, dread climbed within Mara.

The ship hissed as it came to a rest, extending its ramp before shutting down its power. Light Hope’s hologram blipped out of existence. Shrouded in the unwelcoming darkness, Mara had nowhere else she could go but out.

Looking to her wrist, she transformed her gauntlet into a lantern. But as she stared at that blue gem near the top, a wave of sickness washed over her. In the darkness of the ship, she thought she saw something move. The sensation of pinpricks along the nerves of her spine forced her to move forward.

“Just a trick of the light,” she told herself as she walked through the shade of the forest before entering the darkened temple. With the lantern’s light only reaching the immediate space within her personal bubble, dozens of shadows stretched from the floor to the ceiling, like a crowd of hundreds of people standing around her. Mara swore she heard voices like whispers, but as she turned the direction of her lamp, the shadows dispersed.

Shaking, she approached the computer system by the far wall that slept in silence, inactive and slowly gathering a fine layer of dust. Staring down at the rectangular slot, Mara knew what needed to be done.

When she transformed her lantern into a sword once more, she heard whispers again -- much closer this time. She turned and her eyes fell on a figure in the distance, its silhouette highlighted by a stream of light from the entrance. The entire figure seemed to be made of shadow, but its blue eyes glowed with an unnatural light. A strange feeling within Mara told her that this figure was angry.

But when she blinked, the specter was gone.

Mara tried to move towards it, despite being far too too scared to speak. But her knee bumped into something. It made a hollow wooden sound before clattering arose from around it, a cacophony of noise that surrounded Mara on all sides. 

Panic gripped her. Every muscle in her body tensed and before Mara could think things through, she ran out of the Temple of Champions into the sunlit forest, and did not stop running until exhaustion grabbed hold of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Light Hope: "Engage Flirting Protocol."
> 
> Ghost She-Ra: “Bitch, you walked into my temple, desecrated this place with your tech, and you think I’d be FINE with you??”


	17. Decoct

A house, or more accurately a hut, sat in the middle of the forest. Mara reminded herself that the Etherians had no way of living inside the bounds of these woods. With the introduction of Eternian Anti-Wayfinding technology, residents who were thoughtless enough to set up camp in the forest would have no means of finding their way home.

And yet, here sat evidence that technology was simply not enough. The home looked old, well-used, having merged with nature where skill could not be harnessed. Tattered, hand-woven cloths hung from the doors and Mara felt a welcoming breeze rustle the fabric as though a cool wind blew from inside.

Wiping sweat from her brow, Mara’s calamitous mind tried to seek out words of doubt or caution. But her body, having run for the better part of an hour, stumbled forward as if by its own volition. As she approached the doorway, two thin arms separated the fabric as a familiar voice shouted:

“OH, Adora-dearie, you’re _right on time_.”

For the first time since the terror kicked in, Mara’s mind fell silent as she stared at the strange, bespectacled old lady.

“I-I…” Mara began, but then she was tugged away from the house by a firm hand on her arm.

“Come, come, we make soup,” Razz said as she pulled Mara back into the depths of the forest, a woven basket swinging on her arm.

“W-wait, soup? What’s going on?” Mara asked.

“Mara is very sick,” Madame Razz informed her with a grave tone, then immediately brightened. “Is okay, I make her soup!”

“I-I’m not sick,” Mara insisted. “Razz, right? What are you--?”

“AHA!” the elderly woman interrupted her with a crow of success. She pointed at green shoots by the roots of a tree. “Adora, shovel.”

“I’m _not_ Adora,” Mara began but was silenced by a broom to the face. 

She was left rubbing her head as she blinked in confusion at the strange old woman. But Razz was already hovering over a plant that had flat, lace-like flowers. The old woman turned her broom upside-down and nudged at the ground until a long, orange root popped free.

“What is that?” Mara asked. “Can you eat that?”

“For soup,” Madame Razz insisted. “So many questions, Adora! Hurry, hurry.”

Mara, who had very little experience interacting with real dirt, stared at the strange plant before her. She tried willing her sword to take the shape of a shovel, but it wouldn’t budge.

The image of those glowing blue eyes arose in her mind. More than anger was reflected in the soulless pupils: the energy radiating off the shadowy figure felt like a very personal hatred directed at Mara.

A chill ran down her spine as though a stranger was tracing ice-cold fingers along her back. She hugged herself in an effort to get the feeling to pass, and was met swiftly with another bonk to the head.

“Ow!” Mara cried at Razz. “That hurt.”

“Stop dawdling, Adora,” Razz said. “Mara needs soup.”

“I do _not_... ugh, fine,” she muttered. Lowering herself to her knees, she dug her fingers into the dirt around the base of the strange plant. But as she uncovered its roots, she discovered the base of it was much wider than the top of it.The more she dug around it, the larger the object revealed itself to be. In the end, she scooped out an oblong plant that was bigger than her hand, and smelled faintly of sour decay.

Taking another sniff before holding her nose, Mara turned to Razz. “You aren’t seriously making food out of this, right?”

Razz already had nearly a dozen different-shaped vegetables in her basket as she approached Mara. 

“This one is important,” Razz said, petting the paper wrapping on the strange root.

“It smells bitter,” Mara said. “It makes my eyes water.”

“Is alright,” Razz said, petting Mara’s head with a dirt-dusted hand. “Life, too, can be bitter.”

Perhaps it was the fault of the strange plant, or Razz’s kind words, or perhaps the simple gesture of being doted on, but Mara’s eyes welled with tears. 

“Why go to all the trouble for a bitter soup?” she asked, wiping at her eyes with her wrists to avoid getting dirt in them.

“Soup cures all that ails, dearie,” Razz said.

“Even a bitter soup?” 

“Especially a bitter soup,” Razz said. 

As batty and unpredictable as the old woman was, Mara found herself grateful for the confusing insight. Mara stared down at the smelly root in her hands, wondering about what existed beneath the papery layers.

Then she felt another bonk on her head.

“Stop doing that!” Mara snapped.

“Dig!” Razz insisted, pointing to another of the same plant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the plant Queen Anne’s Lace is actually just the flowering end of wild carrots. That’s the strange root Razz dug up. Mara, of course, is digging up the Etherian equivalent of onions, but has never seen them in nature before.


	18. Dearie

Mara carried the surprisingly heavy basket as Razz led the way to her home. But with each turn the old woman took, the pair moved deeper into unfamiliar greenery.

“Razz, are you sure you know the way?” Mara said as doubt crept up her shoulder blades. “We definitely weren’t in this part of the forest before.”

Mara narrowly dodged a thwap from Broom as Madame Razz tutted her. “She ask if Madame Razz knows the way home,” the old woman muttered as if speaking to an invisible companion. Between the darkened leaves of unfamiliar plants, Mara swore she saw a pair of eyes blink in and out of existence.

“Ughh… Th… this forest isn’t safe, you know,” Mara said. “People aren’t usually able to find their way through here. I-I didn’t even know anyone could live here.”

“Oh, Adora, you’re so funny!” the old woman cried. “Of course Madame Razz knows the way home. It’s easy: you know it, too.”

“I-I don’t though,” Mara insisted.

“Nonsense, Adora found her way to Madame Razz,” the old woman said.

“That was an accident,” Mara insisted. “I was running and the next thing I knew, I was outside of your hut.”

“Exactly!” Razz said and Mara had to go over the last few minutes of their conversation to be sure she understood.

She didn’t. “What do you mean, ‘Exactly’?”

“You were seeking Madame Razz, and so you find her,” she said, turning back to grasp hold of Mara’s hand. “Really, Adora, you always find Madame Razz when you need her most.” She offered the girl a genuine, gap-toothed grin as she beamed with grandmotherly pride.

Though Mara suspected this was a facet of the old woman’s insanity rather than a law of nature, she found herself craving the satisfaction of this answer rather than any other explanation. 

“I guess that explains how we’ve crossed paths twice now,” Mara said.

“Twice? Ohhhhh twice,” Madame Razz gave a breathy chuckle as she tugged Mara’s hand, urging her to move faster. “Only twice. To celebrate, I make you soup!”

As soon as the words escaped the old woman’s mouth, the pair came upon a familiar alcove. As the moons shifted with the light of the afternoon, Mara caught sight of the strange hut, its curtains dancing with the pull of the wind.

The hut should never have been here. It should never have been findable due to disruptive Eternian technology. Yet as Mara stared at the quaint little house, a foreign sense of nostalgia filled her. This place was home.

It couldn’t be Mara’s home. Mara had never been to this planet before. She’d never seen this hut until the early afternoon. Yet this ramshackle shack housed something meaningful and foreign, that dangled just out of reach of the Champion’s understanding, as though fond memories were born here that had yet to be made.

“This place… it feels so familiar,” Mara murmured, tracing her fingers over a strange helmet that bore an insignia she’d never seen before.

And then Madame Razz set her stove on fire, yanking Mara from her thoughts.

She grabbed the old woman by the back of her shawl and pulled her away from the sudden rush of heat with a cry of: “CAREFUL!”

“Is alright, Adora-dearie,” Razz insisted, patting her hand. Then the old woman grabbed the helmet and put it directly over the heat.

Mara flinched, but waited until Razz’s back was turned before yanking the helmet off and replacing it swiftly with what looked to be a metal pot. Razz thrust a wooden bucket into the young woman’s torso, knocking the wind out of her for the moment.

“You fetch the water, I make the soup!” Razz’s tone turned demanding. This was an order, and as confused as Mara was, she was grateful to let someone else take charge.

However, she had second thoughts when Razz produced a large knife. Mara couldn’t help lingering to be sure the nearsighted woman wouldn’t accidentally cut some fingers with the vegetables.

But Madame Razz was wise to Mara’s behavior and ordered her to fetch water by simply clapping her hands twice. Mara visualized brooms making contact with her face again if she didn’t move quickly, so she left the old woman to look after herself.

There wasn’t a sink or any visible pump nearby. Having spent her life on a space station, Mara never stopped to consider how water pumps worked. Since she was in nature, she decided to let the forest lead her to water. Closing her eyes and focusing, she listened past the sounds of chittering wildlife, to the familiar trickle of running water in the distance. 

It was a river, perhaps, or at least a creek that might guide her towards a bigger source. She followed after the sound, keeping it to her left side as a means of finding her way back. 

But barely a few yards into the forest, she turned to look behind herself and the hut was gone. Unfamiliar trees and plants sat where Razz’s house should have been.

Without thinking, Mara moved back towards where the house had just been sitting. But as Mara followed the path, she found herself cornered in a dark forest alcove. Sitting at the center of the grass was an ancient well.

Mara tried to catch her breath as her heart pounded. She approached the chipped, rocky edge of the structure.

But as she looked into the seemingly endless darkened pit, two blue eyes glared up at her.

She shrieked and fell, crawling backwards as a shadowy figure emerged from its depths.

“Wh-who are you?” Mara choked out, but the words barely made it past her lips. The dark figure held out its hand and Mara’s gauntlet began to glow before it shifted into the Sword of Protection. It began floating towards the darkened figure as if commanded by the ethereal force.

“NO!” Mara cried, seizing the weapon. “Please stop! Stop! Please, She-Ra!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> She-Ra’s obviously channelling the little girl from The Ring rn.


	19. Dazed

The force pulling at the sword went beyond strength. The Sword of Protection slipped through Mara’s hands as though it were incorporeal. For a desperate moment, Mara tried reaching for it, but the weapon flew through the air and landed in the grasp of the ghastly figure.

The phantom began to glow along the edges, its outline brightening and sharpening in contrast against the darkened woods as the sword glowed with a jagged red light. There echoed a cracking noise and as Mara watched, a fissure formed at the center of the sapphire crystal.

Light filled her vision and Mara raised her hands to shield her eyes. She couldn’t find the breath to scream.

“Dearie?” came a familiar voice behind her. 

Mara opened her eyes to well-lit woods. The specter was gone, and the Sword of Protection lay by her side. The crystal was not cracked, but in the reflection of the light, it bore a white line down the center.

“Dearie?” came the voice once more. “What’s wrong?” There rested a bony hand on her shoulder.

“Razz?” Mara’s voice was shaking as she turned to the older woman, grasping her hand as gratitude tried to push back against fear. Razz gave her cheek a firm pinch, yanking Mara from the grips of terror.

“You come to visit old Razz?” the old woman asked, petting the top of Mara’s head. “Such a nice girl.”

“You… you sent me for water,” Mara said. A chill ran through her. “How long has it been since you sent me for water?”

Razz blinked behind owl-like spectacles and tilted her head. “Ah, you are so funny, Adora,” the old woman said. 

“We’re making soup,” Mara insisted, frantically trying to get a sense of stability. 

“Soup?” the old woman repeated. A veneer of nostalgia passed across her face. “Soup, that was such a long time ago…” Her expression pinched with sorrow and she bit her lip as she pet Mara’s cheek with a talon-like thumb.

Mara sniffled back tears as they threatened, feeling much like the child Razz saw in her. She wanted to crawl into the old woman’s lap and be rocked to sleep.

“Is this what happens to Etherians who live in these woods?” Mara asked as she moved to her knees, nearly eye-level with Razz. “They come loose from time? They’re untethered from space or direction? Is this what my people have done to these woods?”

Razz’s expression softened, but the lines of sadness remained on her weather-worn face. She bore a smile with her few remaining teeth, but it was far from an expression of joy.

“No, dearie,” Razz said. “But perhaps you should ask her.” 

“Her?” Mara repeated.

Razz poked at Mara’s heart with a bony finger. “The one who rests here.”

“Wait… do you mean me? Or…” Mara looked down at her sword and watched its jewel gleam in the light, its new scar reflecting against the shades of blue. Fear tightened around her heart. “No, Razz, I can’t ask her. She… she’s angry with me,” Mara murmured.

“What is she, to you?” Razz asked, helping heft Mara to her feet with surprising strength. As Mara struggled to answer, the old woman grasped her hand and began leading her out of the alcove, down a vaguely familiar path. “Ah, we go back now. Come-come, dearlie.”

“She’s… she’s my mantle, she’s my title,” Mara insisted, searching desperately for a way to explain it to the old woman. “She’s… she’s my responsibility.” With those words, she felt the relief of an answer, held back by the stasis of its rawness. “She’s my responsibility,” she repeated.

The old woman gave Mara a small smirk in response as they arrived at Razz’s hut.

“I think I know what I need to do,” Mara said. “Wish me luck. And… thank you, Razz.” She leaned down and pressed a quick peck to the older woman’s leathery cheek. Razz tittered and patted Mara lovingly on the shoulder.

“Madame Razz is always here, dearie, when you need to find her,” Razz replied. A befuddled smile crossed Mara’s lips before gratitude shone through. 

Mara nodded before dashing through the woods, allowing her gut to guide her. She made it barely 10 minutes through unfamiliar wilderness before logic caught up: she needed directions from her datapad to find her way back to the ship.

Yet, even as she carried this thought, she followed her gut, pushing aside the brush and branches that prevented her from moving forward. The path opened into a field where her ship sat before her, pristine, spotless as though nature never tried to encroach on it.

She approached it from a completely different angle than before, examining the metal hull as though resting her hand upon it might tell her the story of how much time passed: minutes, hours, days? Years?

The door opened with a jolt and the ramp slid into place automatically. Mara winced at herself for jumping in response, but she couldn’t stop her heart from pounding. 

After gathering rags from her ship’s unchanged interior, Mara stood outside the entrance to the darkened temple, steeling herself with unsteady breaths. She stared down at her sword and tried willing it to the form of a lantern, but it didn’t respond to her.

Beside the temple’s entrance grew a sprig of wildflowers. She used her sword to cut a handful free, and tucked it into her belt.

Nodding to herself, she carried the sword and rags carefully into the pitch-black room. The sound of wind like whispers rose around her. In the farthest corner of the room, two blue eyes blinked in and out of existence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mara's story continues in, [Umbra: All That Remains Hidden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066253/chapters/66085033), now available!


	20. Defrayal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mara's story continues in,[ Umbra: All That Remains Hidden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066253/chapters/66085033), now available!**

As Mara inched into the temple, she felt the air grow colder around her. Each carefully placed step brought her deeper into the pitch-black chamber and further from the light of the doorway. Mara heard her own unsteady breaths reflected around her like whispered words. Every nerve in her body told her to run, but she willed herself to keep creeping forward.

Her toe came in contact with a solid object and a jolt ran through her, the fight-or-flight defense screaming in her mind. But she froze where she stood and took slow breaths to steady herself.

Crouching down, Mara tucked her sword under an arm and felt along the ground. As her fingers brushed an oblong shape, she heard words that sounded like her own voice echoing around her.

_”Stop.”_

_”Intruder.”_

She moved a shaking hand to pick up the object, but it rolled away, deeper into the shadows along the far wall.

Mara tried to swallow the lump in her throat as she shifted to her knees, acutely aware of how exposed her back was. She recognized with dread that she would be much slower to run away should she be chased, or attacked, or worse.

Her hands traced along the ground of the temple, her entire body quivering as her hands reached deeper into the lightless void around her.

Fingers fell on another oblong object, and this time Mara seized it before it could roll away. She brought it close to her face and, with only the slightest hint of light in the overwhelming darkness, recognized it to be one of the faceless idols that rested in the temple. Two little points poked out of the sides of its tiara. Though featureless, its armored shoulder pads jutted out to the sides, resembling the ones on Mara's outfit.

Cloth in hand, Mara gently brushed along the surface of the object, wiping away dirt and dust from its carved wooden surface. 

“This place is important to you,” Mara’s voice was pinched tight with nerves, yet she spoke to the object as though holding a conversation with She-Ra. “I can tell. And I’m sorry that I didn’t realize it sooner.” 

Considering her weapon for a long moment, she decided instead to rest it on the floor. If she was chased out of this building… well, she didn’t want to think about that right now. But for the time being, she prioritized the idol, tucking the newly cleaned object under her arm as she reached for the next one.

Light filled her vision for a blinding moment. She turned towards its source and saw the transformed Sword of Protection resting on the floor in the shape of a lantern. Its glow flickered a moment before growing stronger. Mara forgot how to breathe, but forced herself to recover quickly.

“Thank you,” Mara murmured to the idol, her voice cracking. Cupping the object with the soft rag, she took a full breath for the first time since entering the temple.

Working silently by lantern light for the next two hours, Mara moved to clean off each idol before placing them in height-order on the platform where they belonged. Mara made sure to wipe down the structure they rested on before speaking up once more.

“I’m not sure what this temple was used for, before my people took it over,” she said, standing before the wooden pulpit. “I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to honor the spirit of She-Ra. But I’d like to understand, if you'll teach me.” She hesitated as she waited for the words to be taken in by whatever forces or magic were listening.

“I’ve brought something for you. An offering.”

Unclipping the flowers from her belt, she rested the wildflowers before the platform. Mara bowed her head as she stood, waiting for answers to come. But when they didn’t, she lingered in that spot considerably longer. She felt alone for the first time in a while. There was a strange comfort that came with that knowledge, as she felt her anxious instincts quiet to a dull whisper.

When she could wait no longer, Mara moved to approach the lantern. But as her fingers made contact with it, it reverted to its original form. The powered-down computer behind her began to glow with a faint blue light. 

“You want me to receive my orders?” Mara asked. 

The calm feeling of solitude was replaced with creeping discomfort as Mara realized that she could not receive her orders in this form. She thought of the last time she transformed into She-Ra: the pain of the searing heat along her hands, the strain of the power running through her and surrounding her, her desperate pleas for She-Ra to stop, to let go, _”Please let me go.”_

Her work cleaning the temple was an effort to show her trustworthiness. But this time, she needed to try trusting She-Ra again. She didn’t feel ready, but she could wait no longer.

Raising her sword, she thought of her team. _“But if your squadron is your source of power, then so shall it be,”_ the Speaker of the Primogen Council had said. 

Mara needed to receive her orders, for the sake of her team, for the sake of her people, for the sake of Etheria.

“For the Honor of Grayskull,” the words issued forth from her mouth with a strength that felt foreign to her. But as she felt magic pull and twist inside and around her, she did not fight against the sensation. And as she stood in the form of She-Ra, she felt every bit like Mara.

She moved to the computer panel according to Mara’s will, and inserted her sword into the slot as though this was the body she was born with.

The computer glowed a soft blue, emitting light to brighten every corner of the darkened temple. The hologram of Light Hope blipped into existence, before blinking with confusion.

“Mara?” came her worried tone. “It has been 4 hours, 38 minutes and 52 seconds since you exited the ship to receive your orders.”

“Only four hours?” Mara asked through She-Ra’s lips. “Wow, that's... It’s… it’s been a long day.”

“Yes, and you’ve been awake for 39 hours and 23 minutes,” Light Hope conceded. “I suppose that would make a day ‘long.’”

Mara giggled helplessly, clutching her forehead as the exhaustion threatened to catch up with her. Light Hope, uncertain of the joke, smiled until she caught herself laughing along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mara's story continues in,[ Umbra: All That Remains Hidden](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27066253/chapters/66085033), now available!**


End file.
